Chapter 13

Breaking Up is Hard to Do:

Nations, States, and Nation-States

A. Logistics
Students’ Time Requirements Activity 1: The Rise of Nationalism and the Fall of Yugoslavia Readings 60-90 minutes Fill in the blanks 75-90 minutes Activity 2: Iraqaphobia Readings 60-90 minutes Fill in the blanks 75-90 minutes

The fill-in-the-blanks activity works very well as an in-class group project. It helps for students to be able to discuss the questions and readings with other students. If so, it is absolutely essential that students read the assigned articles in advance of the discussion. They will need to consult the readings to find pertinent passages, but if they are reading it for the first time during group work, they will either not finish or not contribute. I remind my students of this fact several times in the days leading up to the project.

If students don’t finish during class, they can finish at home.

If done in groups in class, you may wish to suggest that a different student act as recorder for each block of questions. Also, assign a different student to be the discussion leader/gatekeeper to keep the discussion on track and prevent any single individual from dominating the discussion. A third student could function as timekeeper. See Chapter 11 and 14 role-playing activities for further discussion of these tasks.

Remind students that Balkan and Middle East politics are always changing and can get quickly out of date. We have done our best to bring things up to date as of late Spring, 2006. If something major occurs after publication that changes any of the answers, the website will provide an update.

It helps to emphasize to students that as boundaries change, what was once ethnonationalism (intra-state) can become irredentism (inter-state), and vice versa. They need to apply these terms to the boundaries that were in place at that time.

In the second edition, we made the activity a little easier by listing the readings and figures that contain the answers for each section. In the third edition, we went one step farther by making sure that the answers can be found in sequential order in the readings. We have also marked with an * those answers that require a little extra thought and cannot be answered simply by reading it in the articles.

Those using the Wiley Plus version of the 4th edition will have a link to the passage in the text where answers can be found. Those using the Book Companion site for the 4th edition can find an annotated set of readings with the location of the answers highlighted. This will make it easier for the instructor to circulate in class while the students are working and be able to point them in the right direction.

B. Lesson Plan
I. Broader context of crises (without overlapping with the activities) 1. Breakup of Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, tearing down of Berlin Wall, reunification of two Germanies, Québec separatism 2. End of Cold War

II. Political geography terminology 1. State = country i. Independent ii. Defined boundaries iii. Internationally recognized iv. Sovereignty over land and people within boundaries v. Gray areas, including colonies 2. Nation = cultural group a. Based on Latin natio, meaning “born, nation, race, species, or breed” b. Common ancestry (mythical or actual) i. See themselves as a group ii. Largest such group (larger than family, clan, tribe) c. Common religion (usually) d. Common language e. Accepted ways of behavior f. Political consciousness g. National homeland i. Regional autonomy h. Examples (most not covered in chapter): i. Tibetans ii. Pushtuns iii. Flemish and Walloons iv. Basques v. Germans vi. Chechens vii. E. Timorese viii. Tamils ix. Kashmiris x. Scottish/Welsh/Irish xi. Inuit xii. Navajo 3. Nation-state a. State’s territory = national homeland b. Political-geographic ideal c. Nation-states are the exception rather than the rule

III. The geography of nations and states 1. What happens when nations and states don’t match up? a. Multistate nation versus multination state 2. Ethnonationalism a. Occurs in multination states b. A minority nation contained within a state dominated by another nation c. Strong feelings of being different from the other nation 3. Separatism a. Desire to have their own state b. Some actions taken to achieve that goal 4. Secession a. When a nation breaks off into an independent state 5. Irredentism a. Occurs in multistate nations b. Homeland spills over into other state c. Desire to join together both parts of homeland into a single state d. Greater ____________ e. Name derives from Italia irredenta in 1870s 6. Examples a. French Canada b. Israel/Palestine—both nations claim the same homeland i. Diaspora ii. Refugees 7. Territorial Organization a. Unitary State b. Federal State i. Lower level administrative units ii. Work best for large, diverse, multinational states iii. Examples of failed federations iv. Raison d’être

IV. Terminological confusion 1. U.S.A. not a union of independent states a. Note: The reason U.S. states are called states and not provinces is because the original thirteen colonies had the potential to all become “states” in the true sense of the word, but instead they “united” to form a country, and the name stuck instead of switching to the more geographically correct term of “provinces.” This explanation is NOT in the book. 2. International is really interstate 3. Interstate highways are really intrastate 4. Nationalism is loyalty to one’s nation 5. Patriotism is loyalty to one’s state

V. Introduction of exercise 1. Southeastern Europe is a shatterbelt a. Boundaries frequently redrawn b. Caught between powerful empires or states c. Topographically fractured d. Crossroads of trade and migration 2. Iraq is heartland of ancient empires a. Also a multination state b. Boundaries also were drawn by outside powers c. War did not occur due to ethnic conflicts, but over geopolitics 3. Methods a. Synthesize information from a variety of sources b. International agencies value people with these skills necessary to disentangle complex situations—the world is not black and white! c. Relevance to your life 4. Things to keep in mind when doing these activities a. If activity to be done in class, you MUST do the readings ahead of time b. Remember the difference between nations and states—don’t confuse the two. c. Nations do not necessarily have different religions and languages in every case. d. The conflict cannot be understood solely on the basis of nation and state geography. You must mesh this with history, economics, and world politics. e. Before the breakup, Yugoslavia consisted of republics. Figure out if these were nations, states, or provinces. f. As the state boundaries change, what was once ethnonationalism (multination states) can become irredentism (multistate nations). Always answer the questions with the existing boundaries of the time period in mind. g. Try to understand the points of view of all sides in the conflict. There can be no successful negotiations or solutions without being able to see the other point of view.
VI. Background on Yugoslavia and introduction of readings and exercise 1. Optional instructor discussion to help understand the context a. 4th century split of Roman empire led to Catholic/Orthodox split b. Ottoman empire dominated from 14th–19th centuries c. Austro-Hungarian empire in 19th century d. Soviet influence e. End of Cold War

VII. Background on Iraq and introduction of readings and exercise 1. Optional instructor discussion to help understand the context a. Iraq’s climate is desert b. Dominated by 2 rivers that flood in the spring, bringing life and/or death. Political control historically depended on water management. c. Cradle of civilization, ancient empires d. Islam e. Ottoman Empire f. British Mandate

VIII. Do fill-in-the-blanks in class (or assign for homework).

IX. Discussion questions.

C. Answer Key
Because of excessive length, the complete answer key and annotated readings are found at the END of this file.

D. Discussion or Essay Questions
Should the United States or Canada intervene in ethnonational wars (or civil wars) in other countries, and if so, when, under what circumstances, and in what way?

Why should students care about the Balkans?

How long should the U.S. or Canada keep peacekeeping troops in the Balkans?

Should the United States support its ally Taiwan if China tries to use force to reclaim it?

What effect do you think the European Union, NAFTA, and other “supranational” (actually suprastate) forms of cooperation and open borders will have on future ethnonational movements in those areas?

How is it possible that, on the one hand, countries are forming supranational organizations like NAFTA and the European Union that require them to willingly give up sovereignty on economic, migration, and environmental policy, while at the same time in the same areas, ethnonationalism is tearing places into even smaller parts?

How small can a state be and remain viable? What determines viability for a “microstate?”

Should any nation, regardless of size or situation, be denied its right to self-determination?

The notion that the entire land surface of the planet (and some of its oceans) should be divided among sovereign states is a relatively new notion, traced by some political geographers to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The notion that people have the right of self-determination of government took hold in the late 1700s with the American and French Revolutions. The time at which people began to develop national consciousness has varied greatly and is under much debate, but in many areas did not occur until the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. Given the relatively recent rise of these nation and state ideas, should they necessarily form the basis of the international political system? Think outside the box and try to imagine another way of organizing political space.

Is the United States a nation-state? If not, why not?

Why do you think states in the United States are called states and not something more technically accurate? (The reason U.S. states are called states and not provinces is because the original thirteen colonies had the potential to all become “states” in the true sense of the word, but instead they “united” to form a country, and the name stuck instead of switching to the more geographically correct term of “provinces.” This explanation is NOT in the book.)

Are Americans, made up largely of immigrants and their descendants, a nation?

Are the Palestinians a nation? If so, when did they become one?

Is England a nation? A state? Neither?

Is the U.K. a nation-state?

What does nationalism mean to the Chinese? To a Tibetan?

Why didn’t the secession of Bosnia stop the fighting there?

What are the future prospects for Bosnia to hold together?

What other potential conflicts remain in the former Yugoslavia?

What contributing factors are likely to turn a minor ethnonationalism situation into a major separatist movement?

The breakup of the former Soviet Union has led to greater nationalism worldwide as individual ethnic groups express their desire for autonomy. Why did the breakup of the Soviet Union unleash the forces of nationalism and what are its long-term consequences in political geography terms?

What affect has the rise of nationalism had on the U.S. role in international affairs? How does this affect the U.S. military and U.S. foreign policy?

What affect has the rise of nationalism had on the United Nations (the number of members, its role in world affairs, the complexity of its mission)?

The U.S.–Mexico border is emerging as a culture region unto itself, with strong movements of ideas, products, culture, technology, food, music, and people etc. across it on a seasonal and even daily basis. Many places along the border have more in common with their counterparts on the other side than with places well within the U.S. and Mexico. What do you think will become of the border region by 2100?

What were President Bush’s stated reasons for invading Iraq, and what were the unstated reasons?

Do you think that democracy can be imposed by armed intervention in a place that has never had a tradition of democracy?

If the stated goal of the U.S. is to create democracy in Iraq, what should it do if the Iraqis elect a radical Islamist regime with close ties to Iran? Should the U.S. respect the democratic will of the people?

In what ways does the United States benefit economically from the war and occupation of Iraq?

Since Vietnam, the United States has wanted to avoid wars that can turn into quagmires. Secretary of State Colin Powell proposed that the U.S. not engage in any war without a clear exit strategy. What is the exit strategy from Iraq, and what factors could make it difficult to achieve?

Historian Samuel Huntington argues that Islam and the West are engaged in a titanic clash of civilizations, and that there are conflicts erupting all around the edges of the Middle Eastern culture region where Islam is coming into conflict with non-Islamic cultures. Do you think that September 11 and the Iraq War can be explained in this way?

What factors will make it difficult for the U.S. to pull all military and administrative personnel out of Iraq after the war?

Should the U.S. recognize an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq?

How useful are the concepts of nations, states, ethnonationalism, and irredentism for understanding the current situation in Iraq? For understanding why the U.S. went to war in Iraq?

Do you think future historians will regard the 2003 war against Iraq as successful?

Compare and contrast the political geographies of Iraq and Yugoslavia.

In what ways is the study of history essential to understanding contemporary political-geographic crises?

It is just a matter of time before Iraq breaks apart like Yugoslavia did—discuss.

What would be the dangers and rewards of allowing Iraq to splinter into separate countries?

What could be done to keep Iraq from breaking apart after U.S. and coalition forces leave?

E. Question Bank

1. True/False Irredentism is a movement by a minority ethnic group to break off from a country and form their own separate state.

2. True/False Irredentism can occur when a nation extends beyond the state in which they are the majority and overlaps into a neighboring state in which they are a minority.

3. True/False The initial breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s was primarily due to the forces of ethnonationalism.

4. True/False In contrast with nations, states are cultural regions based on actual or mythological common ancestry.

5. True/False To be a nation, the common ancestry of the people must be real and not just mythological.

6. True/False Yugoslavia literally translates into English as “land of the Southern Slavs.”

7. True/False A nation will often consider its ancestral territory a part of its homeland, even if they no longer occupy it.

8. True/False Jews and Palestinians have separate homelands within the state of Israel.

9. True/False As a result of the conflict in Yugoslavia, there is no longer a country on the map by that name.

10. True/False The Kurdish region is more properly considered a national homeland, not a state.

11. True/False If the Iraqi Kurds were granted independence, the resulting regions would be a nation-state.

12. True/False If the Shia government in Iran tried to “reclaim” the Shia region of southern Iraq on the basis of a common national religion, the situation would best be described as irredentism, not ethnonationalism.

13. True/False The desire for a “Greater Kurdistan” is an example of ethnonationalism, not irredentism.

14. True/False In Iraq under President Saddam Hussein, a minority nation was the dominant power and the majority nation was oppressed.

15. True/False The new Iraqi constitution created a federal system of government.

16. Which of the following could today be considered a nation-state? a. Serbia b. Bosnia c. Yugoslavia d. Croatia
* e. Slovenia

17. A region caught between powerful forces whose boundaries are continually redefined is known as a: a. irredentist state b. non-nation-state
* c. shatterbelt d. province with divided loyalties

18. Which of the following is a classic case of ethnonationalism? a. British Columbia b. Saskatchewan
* c. Québec d. Maine e. California

19. Which of the following multination states is the exception in that there is no major unrest as a result of strong ethnonationalistic feelings? a. France b. China c. Israel
* d. Switzerland

20. A person who is outside of their country due to a fear of persecution and is unable or unwilling to return is a: a. separatist
* b. refugee c. foreigner d. non-citizen

21. The division between Catholic and Orthodox Christians that runs through the middle of the Balkans was originally due to what historical event?
* a. the east/west split of the Roman Empire b. the division of the Austro-Hungarian Empire c. the advent of Nazi troops through part of the area in World War II d. the advent of the Ottoman Empire through only half of the area

22. To help maintain the multination state of Yugoslavia between World War II and 1990, the presidency of the country rotated between: a. various political parties based on popular elections b. various political parties based on Tito’s personal choosing
* c. the 6 republics d. the 5 major ethnic groups e. the 3 major religions

23. The main minority nation within Macedonia is: a. Croatians b. Greeks c. Serbians
* d. Albanians e. Macedonians

24. A complete break-off of a region to form its own independent state is called: a. ethnonationalism b. regional autonomy c. separatism
* d. secession

25. __________________ is a classic case of irredentism. a. South Africa b. Portugal c. Québec d. the Navajo reservation
* e. Somalia

26. The two nations that fought over Kosovo in 1999 were: a. Serbians and Bosnian Muslims b. Croatians and Macedonians
* c. Serbians and Albanians d. Croatians and Bosnian Muslims

27. Ethnic cleansing implies:
* a. “purifying” an area by killing, threatening, or otherwise forcing out members of other ethnic groups b. forcing members of other religions or speakers of other languages to adopt the religion of the dominant group c. giving greater regional autonomy to a minority ethnic group d. establishing camps where members of ethnic groups perceived to be “unhygienic” are forced into mass baths e. redrawing of boundaries along ethnic lines

28. Which of the following is not part of the definition of a state?
* a. a common language b. an organized economy and circulation system c. sovereignty d. a permanent resident population e. defined boundaries

29. Kosovo: a. is an independent country now
* b. is a subdivision of Serbia with a large Albanian majority c. is one of the six former republics of Yugoslavia d. has a predominantly Serbian population e. is part of Romania claimed by Serbia

30. Which of the following states from the original Yugoslavia has the largest Moslem population in percentage terms? a. Croatia b. Slovenia
* c. Bosnia d. Yugoslavia e. Macedonia

31. Which of the following historical events is responsible for the existence of a substantial Muslim population in the former Yugoslavia?
* a. the Ottoman empire b. the division between the Eastern and Western Roman empires c. the Austro-Hungarian empire d. the US-Soviet Cold War e. the various Mongol tribes that swept across Europe as the Roman empire collapsed

32. A political geographer would describe the aspirations of Bosnian Serbs to join their territory with that of the Serbian homeland in Yugoslavia as an example of: a. ethnonationalism b. ethnic separatism
* c. irredentism d. ethnic cleansing

33. The “no-fly zone” over northern Iraq was imposed to protect ______________ from air attacks by ________________.: a. the Shia Arabs from the Kurds b. the Sunni Arabs from the Kurds
* c. the Kurds from the Iraqi government d. the Kuwaitis from the Iraqi government e. the Sunni Arabs from the Shia majority

34. After the first Gulf War, the United States reneged on promises to support an independent Kurdish state primarily because of strong opposition by its close ally, ________, which has substantial Kurdish population of its own to deal with.
* a. Turkey b. Iran c. Saudi Arabia d. Russia e. Israel

35. Which country does not contain part of the ancestral Kurdish homeland? a. Turkey b. Iran c. Iraq d. Syria
* e. Afghanistan

36. The current boundaries of Iraq were drawn by: a. The United Nations in 1991 b. The United States in 2003 c. The Ottoman Empire in the 17th Century
* d. The British after World War I e. Pablo Picasso, after drinking too much absinthe

37. Since gaining its independence, Iraq has been a: a. nation
* b. state c. nation-state d. province e. national homeland

38. What is the correct political geography term to describe what New Jersey, California, and Illinois are? a. nation b. state c. nation-state
* d. province e. colony

39. Which of the following provisions is NOT in the new Iraqi constitution? a. “Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation. No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.” b. “No law can be passed that contradicts the principles of democracy.” c. “Arabic and Kurdish are the two official languages for Iraq. Iraqis are guaranteed the right to educate their children in their mother tongues.”
* d. The regional authorities have power to conduct their own foreign policy and national defense. e. “A quota on revenues from oil and gas should be defined for a specified time for affected regions that were deprived in an unfair way by the former regime or later on, in a way to ensure balanced development in different parts of the country.”

40. After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, U.S. credibility abroad has been undermined by the failure to find __________________. a. Saddam Hussein b. Saddam Hussein’s hidden fortune c. anyone willing to lead Iraq
* d. weapons of mass destruction e. Ayatollah Khomeini

41. According to Galbraith, the most explosive unresolved territorial issue in present-day Iraq is:
* a. the city of Kirkuk b. the ethnic division of Baghdad c. the border with Kuwait d. the border with Iraq e. the city of Fallujah

C. Answer Key

Annotated Answer Key to Activities 1 (Yugoslavia) and 2 (Iraq)

ACTIVITY 1: THE RISE OF NATIONALISM AND THE FALL OF YUGOSLAVIA

QUESTIONS
(Note: Answers to questions marked by * cannot be obtained directly in the readings. You’ll need to think critically about the readings and apply concepts properly to figure them out.)
A. History of Hatred
Refer to articles by Goodrich and Karaosmano´glu and Figures 13.6 and 13.9.
1.1. What cultural trait, language or religion, divides the Serbs and Croats?
Religion

1.2. Name the religion of the Serbs Orthodox and of the Croats. Roman Catholic

1.3. What historical development is responsible for this religious divide between Serbs and Croats?
The division of the Roman Empire into an Eastern Roman Empire headquartered in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) and a Western Roman Empire based in Rome. As the Roman Empire practiced Christianity as prescribed by the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Roman Empire evolved into the seat of Orthodox Christianity.

1.4. How did Muslims come to this region of Europe?
Introduced by the Ottoman Empire

1.5. In what century did the Muslims defeat Serbia in the battle of Kosovo?
14th Century

1.6. What other outside empire next dominated the northern parts of the region in the several centuries prior to World War I? Austrian or Austro-Hungarian

1.7. A country called Yugoslavia (Land of the Southern Slavs) first came into being after World War I. Which of its member nations dominated Yugoslavia at that time?
The Serbs

1.8. What happened during World War II that further increased Serb-Croat hatred and added to the Serb sense of victimhood?
The Nazis set up a Croatian puppet state, and Croatian troops killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs.

B. The Prebreakup Situation Refer to articles by Goodrich and Karaosmano´glu, Figures 13.7 and 13.8, and Table 13.1. After World War II, Yugoslavia adopted a federal system of government. The country was divided into six “republics,” similar to the 50 U.S. states and 13 Canadian provinces, but with one important difference. In Yugoslavia, the government tried to define the republics along ethnonational lines.
1.9. Which republic was most ethnically uniform?* Slovenia [Table 13.1 and Figure 13.8]

1.10. Which republic was least ethnically uniform?* Bosnia [Table 13.1 and Figure 13.8]

1.11. Prior to its breakup, was Yugoslavia a nation-state, a multistate nation, or a multination state?* multination state [Table 13.1 and Figure 13.8]

1.12. The prewar state of Yugoslavia referred to its component regions as “republics.” Would a political geographer have called them states, nations, or provinces?* provinces [Table 13.1 and Figure 13.8]

1.13. From World War II until its breakup, Yugoslavia had what kind of government, communist, capitalist, or monarchy? communist

C. The Breakup
Refer to article by Karaosmano´glu, Figures 13.7 and 13.8, and Table 13.1.
From 1991 to 1993, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Macedonia all claimed independent status. In fact, the breakup of Yugoslavia consisted of three wars, not one.

1.14. Did Yugoslavia break up because of ethnonationalism or irredentism?* ethnonationalism [Table 13.1 and Figure 13.8]

1.15. The first war, which lasted only ten days, was between Slovenia and the Yugoslavian government after Slovenia declared its independence in the spring of
1991. Would the declaration of independence by Slovenia be described as an act of irredentism or secession?*secession [Table 13.1 and Figure 13.8]

1.16. Why didn’t the Serb-dominated government of Yugoslavia put up more of a fight to keep Slovenia from breaking away?*
Because Slovenia had very few resident Serbs and is not implicated in the Serbian design of creating a "Greater Serbia."

1.17. After Slovenia became independent, could it have been characterized as a nation-state (see Figure 13.8)?* nation-state [Table 13.1 and Figure 13.8]

1.18. The second war also started in the spring of 1991, but in Croatia. The two warring nations were Serbians and Croatians.

D. Bosnia
Use article by Rozen, Table 13.1, and Figures 13.7, 13.8, and 13.12. To answer the next set of questions, you need to adjust your mental map. After breaking up, the former Yugoslavia consisted of five states, not one. In addition to Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia, the remaining two republics, Serbia and Montenegro, stayed together under the name of Yugoslavia. They were sometimes referred to as the “rump Yugoslavia” to distinguish it from the former, larger Yugoslavia. The third war within the former Yugoslavia began in Bosnia in the spring of 1992.
1.19. Which was the dominant nation within Bosnia in terms of population?
Muslims[Table 13.1]

1.20. Name the second and third most populous nations within Bosnia’s borders.
Serbs and Croats [Table 13.1]

1.21. Which, if any, of these two minority nations in Bosnia were irredenta of other states?*
Both Serbs and Croats are irredenta (overflows) of the main Serbian and Croatian regions in Serbia and Croatia respectively. [Figure 13.8]

1.22. After Bosnia established its independence, would it have been best described as a state, a nation, or a nation-state?* state [Table 13.1 and Figure 13.8, Figure 13.7b, Figure 13.12]

1.23. Why would the breakup of Bosnia worsen the refugee problem?
The breakup of Bosnia would worsen the refugee problem because it means that many “refugees would never be able to return to their homes which are now held by other ethnic groups”

1.24. What message would the permanent breakup of Bosnia into two or three separate states send to other ethnic groups in the Balkans and around the world?
Secession would send a message that “aggression and genocide are acceptable ways to achieve their territorial and national goals.”

1.25. Why wouldn’t the Serb-dominated part of Bosnia, which the Bosnian Serbs call Republika Srpska, be a viable independent state?
Republika Srpska is not viable because it does not have a strong economic and political base. Presumably, it will not be able to join up with Serbia proper because that would be viewed negatively by the international community due to the overtones it would carry with it of past ethnic cleansing which was carried out for the purpose of joining a greater Serbia. It also has a jagged border that would be difficult to defend, no access to the sea, and a very narrow corridor connecting its two parts (See Rosen article and also Figure 13.11).

E. Kosovo and Ethnic Cleansing (1999) Refer to articles by U.S. State Department, Karaosmano´glu, and Goodrich, Figures 13.7 and 13.8, Table 13.1, and the author’s update.
1.26. In what state is Kosovo? Yugoslavia (later called Serbia and Montenegro, but with the breakaway of Montenegro, now just called Serbia). Accept either answer, because some of our maps still say Yugoslavia). See Figure 13.7

1.27. What two nations cohabit Kosovo? Albanians and Serbs [Table 13.1 and Figure 13.8]

1.28. What nation is the majority in Kosovo? Albanians [Table 13.1 and Figure 13.8]

1.29. What state’s citizens would likely have irredentist feelings towards Kosovo?* Albania's
[Table 13.1 and Figure 13.8]

1.30. What is the aim of “ethnic cleansing”?
Changing the demographic composition of towns and regions to get rid of other ethnic groups and create ethnically homogenous regions.

1.31. Name five methods of ethnic cleansing.
Murder, rape, imprisonment, threats and intimidation, home-burnings, use of Kosovars as human shields or for protective cover, detentions, summary executions, identity cleansing, violation of medical neutrality, etc.

F. All’s Not Quiet on the Balkan Front
Refer to Update by authors and Figure 13.8.
1.32. Is there still a state called Yugoslavia? No.
If not, what is it called now?
The correct answer to this question changed after the 4th edition went to print, so you should accept either "Serbia and Montenegro" or "Serbia." According to our book, what was left of Yugoslavia was renamed "Serbia and Montenegro" as of Feb 2003. However, according to the CIA Factbook, "following a three-year postponement, Montenegro held an independence referendum in the spring of 2006 under rules set by the EU. The vote for severing ties with Serbia exceeded the 55% threshold, allowing Montenegro to formally declare its independence on 3 June 2006.” This change, unfortunately, occurred after the 4th edition went to print.

1.33. Aside from the smoldering conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo, what other political geographic issues remain that might break up an existing state and create a new state in the region?
Macedonia has a substantial Albanian minority. The Albanian rebels are calling for a change in the Macedonian constitution to upgrade the status of the Albanian minority (see Author's Update). A second possible flash point is Montenegro, which is still part of Yugoslavia (see Update). The Kosovo situation is also not yet stable and could yet lead to more ethnic cleansing (Update). Finally, the large number of Bosnian Croats and Serbs that oppose the unified country that they are presently a part of could lead to more pressure for separation there (Update).
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ACTIVITY 1 READINGS THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR October 13, 1993
Old Animosities, Exploited Today, Underlie Complex Balkans Puzzle3 by Lawrence J. Goodrich, staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor. Reprinted by permission.

Boston—As the likelihood grows that American forces will be directly involved in trying to restore the peace in the former Yugoslavia, many Americans are asking how the slaughter there began. Unfortunately, what is happening today in the Balkans is nothing new. It is the continuation of the ethnic and religious hatreds that have swept the region for centuries, made worse by radical nationalists’ cynical exploitation of these animosities. The ethnic mixture of the Balkans began to form about the 5th century A.D.Vast tribal migrations swept across Europe: Germanic tribes came west, followed by Slavs to their east. In succeeding centuries Magyars (Hungarians), Mongols, Tatars, and Bulgars ranged over the Balkans. Between Western and Eastern Europe, a great gulf developed. Rome had fallen, but the Roman Empire in the East, with its capital at Constantinople (Byzantium), lasted another 1,000 years. The Roman church without a state and the Byzantine church subservient to the emperor split over longstanding political and theological disputes. This chasm went right through the Balkans: Hungarians, Slovenes, and Croats were Roman Catholic, while Romanians, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Serbs were Eastern Orthodox [see Figure 13.6a]. [Questions 1.1-1.3, see also Fig. 13.6a] All across Europe nation-states began to form around the most powerful tribes. But in the 14th and 15th centuries, a series of catastrophes struck the Balkans. First the Ottoman Turks defeated Serbia at the battle of Kosovo in 1389. [Question 1.5] Constantinople (now Istanbul) fell in 1453. [The Ottoman Turks introduced the Muslim (i.e., Islamic) religion into the region.] [Question 1.4] By 1529 the Turks had fought their way to the gates of Vienna, which they besieged again in 1683 [see Figure 13.6b]. All political, cultural, and economic evolution in those parts of the Balkans under Turkish rule stopped under the oppression of the Turkish sultan. For the next 400 years, the history of the Balkans was a history of rivalry among the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires. Croats, Slovenes, and Transylvanian Romanians lived under the influence of Vienna and Budapest [see Figure 13.6c]. Romanians, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Serbs, and some Albanians clung tenaciously to their Eastern Orthodox faith, which became entwined with their national aspirations. Most Albanians and some Slavs, however, converted to Islam. The Balkan peasantry was kept impoverished as agricultural riches were shipped off to feed the Ottoman Empire. The Turks played off tribes, clans, and families against each other, poisoning the political culture. Christianity was barely tolerated. None of the subsequent development of Western and Central Europe—the growth of guilds and the middle class, the decline of feudalism, the Reformation and the Counterreformation, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment—touched the Balkans. By the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire was in serious decline. Most of the Balkan ethnic groups began to agitate for independence and their own states. But their villages were often scattered among each other. Little by little each group threw off Turkish rule. Russia felt a special calling to help its Orthodox Slav brethren, the Serbs and Bulgarians, and provided political or military support.
But the rule of the Balkans is: Everything for my ethnic group and nothing for yours. The group on top now governs at the expense of the others; the groups out of power wreak vengeance when the power balance shifts. People see themselves as Serbs, Croatians, or Albanians first and as individuals second. This attitude is preserved by the region’s economic backwardness and low educational levels. It is especially true in rural areas. While cities may be ethnically mixed, villages usually are ethnically pure, or nearly so. [In 1908, Austria-Hungary directly annexed Bosnia, inciting the Serbs to seek the aid of Montenegro, Bulgaria, and Greece in seizing the last Ottoman-ruled lands in Europe. [Question 1.6, see also Figure 13.6c] In the ensuing Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, Serbia obtained northern and central Macedonia, but Austria compelled it to yield Albanian lands that would have given Austria access to the sea. Serb animosity against Austria-Hungary reached a climax on June 28, 1914, when the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo by a Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip—the spark that lit the powder keg of World War I.4]
After the Turkish and Austrian Empires collapsed at the end of World War I, the victorious Allies carved up the remains into a series of new, artificial Balkan states. The southern Slav groups were lumped together in what officially was christened Yugoslavia [literally “land of the southern Slavs”], in 1918. Serbia was the dominant partner, which led to constant friction with the Croats. [Question 1.7] The new country never had a chance. Nazi Germany invaded in 1941 and set up a fascist Croatian puppet state. [The Croatian] Ustashe troops committed terrible atrocities against Bosnian and Croatian Serbs [murdering approximately 350,000 Serbs]. Serbian nationalist guerrillas, the Chetniks, retaliated in kind. [Question 1.8]

Communist partisans under Josip Broz Tito, armed by the Allies, fought the Germans to a standstill, broke with the Chetniks, and took power at the end of the war. [Post-World War II Yugoslavia had the same external boundaries as before, but internally it was divided into six republics: Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia- Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Montenegro (Figure 13.7ab). There was some attempt to define these republics along ethnonational lines, but of the six, only Slovenia was even close to being ethnically pure; see Table 13.1 and Figure 13.8.] Communist rule under Marshal Tito kept a tight lid on ethnic feuding, but it continued to smolder. [Under communist rule, Serbia was transformed from an agrarian to an industrial society.] [Question 1.13] When Tito died in 1980, he left in place a collective presidency of Yugoslavia that rotated among the six republics.

But without Tito’s personal magnetism and willingness to use force, the system soon began to break down. After communism collapsed in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the Yugoslav federation began to dissolve as Croats and Slovenes demanded independence, partly in pursuit of historic aspirations but also in fear of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s repression of the Albanian minority in Kosovo. Mr. Milosevic and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman made things worse by their inflammatory rhetoric and their policies of grabbing land from neighboring republics, to create a greater Serbia and a greater Croatia, and to expel other groups. The region remains a tinder box: Greeks are nervous about the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia; Montenegrins, still united with Serbia in rump Yugoslavia, are growing restless; and serious tensions persist between Hungarians and Romanians. The most dangerous area is Kosovo province in Serbia. An historical Serbian heartland, it is now inhabited mostly by ethnic Albanians, who have seen their rights suppressed by the Milosevic government. Almost half the Albanians in the world live in Serbia; should the Serbs start an ethnic-cleansing campaign, it is doubtful Albania could stand by. Such a conflict could ignite tensions between Greece, which likely would side with the Orthodox Serbs, and Turkey, which would support the Muslim Slavs and mostly Muslim Albanians. The question now is whether the U.S. can provide the leadership that will take the Balkans in the direction of peace or whether the region will sink deeper into disaster.

THE UNITED NATIONS INSTITUTE FOR DISARMAMENT RESEARCH UNIDIR/93/37, Research Paper No. 22, 1993. Reprinted by permission.
Excerpted from “Crisis in the Balkans” by Ali L. Karaosmano´glu

The 19th and 20th centuries have undoubtedly left scars that are difficult to cure. But the immediate cause of the present Yugoslav crisis is neither external power intervention nor traditional ethnic animosities. The latter could well be prevented from escalating to a bloody conflict situation if moderate policies were adopted by the conflicting regional entities. First of all, Serbia’s, and its extreme nationalist leader Milosevic’s, ambition to create a “Greater Serbia” constitute the major cause of the crisis.5 To some extent, the crisis is also the product of the Croatian and Bosnian policies of independence which failed to show sufficient consideration for the large Serbian communities in both countries. Yugoslavia’s nations had “very different and often mutually exclusive needs and aspirations.” For the Serbs [who were the dominant power], Yugoslavia’s future depended on further and tighter centralization. The non-Serb majorities, on the contrary, were in favor of creating their own sovereign states, or at least a confederation of sovereign states. . . A series of events in 1990–91 contributed to the deterioration of the crisis. In April 1990, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the Democratic United Opposition of Slovenia (DEMOS) came to power as a result of multi-party elections. Both political parties were centre-right and pro-independence. During the election campaign, the HDZ advocated a “Greater Croatia” that would annex Croat- populated regions of Bosnia while condemning “greater Serbian hegemony” [i.e., dominance]. This created considerable concern among the Serbian population living in the border areas of Croatia. The Serbian perception of this threat was reinforced, on the one hand, by the increasingly secessionist stance of Croatia, and on the other, by the expulsion of Serbs from government positions. Moreover, the Croatian authorities threatened the Serbs by saying they would take measures to weaken Serbian economic position in the republic. These moves of the Croatian government led to growing Serbian fears, and, eventually, to insurrections and armed clashes. . . In February, [Serbian President] Milosevic and [Croatian President] Tudjman agreed on Serbian and Croatian annexations in Bosnia. . . . [A Bosnian referendum on independence] was held in March 1992 without Serbian participation. The Muslims and Croats voted in favor of a “sovereign and independent Bosnia and Herzegovina” while the Serbs were erecting barricades around Sarajevo. So far there have been three wars in the Yugoslav succession. The first took place in Slovenia in the Spring of 1991 and lasted for 10 days. The Serbian minority in Slovenia is only 2.4% of the population and is not implicated in the Serbian design of creating a “Greater Serbia.” The conflict remained local without regional or international implications. [Question 1.16] The second war [between Croats and Serbs from Croatia and Serbia] started in Croatia in the spring of 1991. [Question 1.18] The hostilities were resumed again in February 1993 while the UN and EC representatives were working on a peace plan. The third began in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the spring of 1992 and is still being waged. The last two conflicts had a significant similarity. One of their common features was the application by the Serbs of policies of “ethnic cleansing.” This involved changing the demographic composition of villages, towns, and regions and clearing land corridors to link up ethnic Serbian enclaves in Croatia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina with Serbia. These policies were (and still are) extensively applied to Bosnian Muslims and Croats. The victims were either directly driven out or intimidated to flee their homes. The methods of intimidation included murder, rape, and imprisonment in concentration camps. [Questions 1.30 and 1.31 - answers also found in U.S. State Dept. papers.] The Yugoslav conflict brought more than two million refugees and displaced persons. Countries such as Croatia, Austria, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Slovenia, and Turkey were put under migratory pressure. Serbia resettled ethnic Serbs in areas that were ethnically cleansed, thereby using refugees to change the demographic composition of regions and thus contributing to the creation of a Greater Serbia.
. . . The Kosovo problem constitutes one of the most dangerous crisis areas in Yugoslavia’s ongoing process of disintegration. The origins of this problem can be traced back to the creation of an independent Albanian state after the defeat of Turkey in the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913. The independent Albania included only 50 percent of the Albanian population in the area. A great number of Albanians remained in Kosovo, an Ottoman province, most of which was given to Serbia. Today there are more than 2 million Albanians in Kosovo (an overwhelming majority of them are Muslims; the figure includes 15,000 Turks) and they account for over 90 percent of the population, the remaining 10 percent being Serbian and Montenegrin. However, the Serbs regard Kosovo as their historic heartland. Kosovo was the cradle of the medieval Serbian state. [See Figure 13.9.] It is the historic battlefield where the Serbs fought against the Ottomans in 1389. It is also a region containing many Orthodox churches and monasteries. These factors make the province a cultural and spiritual centre for the Serbs. Kosovo has greatly contributed to the formation of a Serbian collective memory and consciousness, and this has become particularly significant in the process of building a Serbian state based on ethnic nationalism. While the Serbs view Kosovo as a part of the Serbian historical patrimony that cannot be negotiable, the Albanians base their claims on self-determination. Kosovo was in fact a self-governing province of Serbia in terms of the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution. Kosovo had its semi-autonomous status gradually eroded by the central government in Belgrade in 1990–1991. The basic cultural and educational rights of the Albanian population were abrogated. The Serbian authorities shut down the Albanian language schools. They dismissed Albanians from the police force, which has been totally serbianized. Belgrade also reinforced the local security force by sending in Serbian and Montenegrin military units. Moreover, the economy was almost entirely serbianized. Most of the Albanian workers and managers were replaced with the Serbs.
The Albanians, for their part, took measures to set up their own state organization in a gradual and clandestine manner. In September 1991 they held a referendum in which they voted for a “sovereign and independent” Kosovo. In May 1992 they held elections [and elected the moderate intellectual Ibrahim Rugova]. They also set up an underground school system financed by parents. Despite these efforts, the Kosovars have not been able to develop an effective means to defend themselves should the fighting spread to Kosovo. The lack of adequate defensive means, on the one hand, and the offensive Serbian strategy on the other, have brought about a very deep sense of insecurity, not only in Kosovo but also in Albania. It should be noted that this feeling of insecurity, combined with the measures of democratization in Albania and Kosovo, increased the assertiveness of Albanians. As a matter of fact, the democratic elections in both countries have further increased popular pressure for an Albanian-Kosovar reunion. Nevertheless, in spite of popular pressure, Albanian authorities in both countries prevented numerous incidents from escalating to all-out conflict. [Remember that this was published in 1993.] Moreover, many Albanians seem willing to accept some form of autonomy within a new Yugoslavia. But this type of settlement is abhorred by the Milosevic administration which still views Kosovo as an integral part of a unitary Serbia.

The Albanians are careful not to provide the Serbian authorities with an excuse for a violent crackdown and the Albanian government has been urging the Kosovars to contribute to a peaceful solution of the Kosovo problem. But Albanian leaders have repeatedly declared that ethnic cleansing in Kosovo would not be tolerated by Tirana [Albania’s capital] and would lead to Albania’s military intervention.

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR February 17, 1993; Copyright © 1993 Lee Malis/Spectrum Pictures. Reprinted by permission.
Bosnia: The Flight from Ethnic Cleansing by Lee Malis (photos by Lee Malis)
Travnik, Bosnia-Herzegovina—The war in Bosnia continues. Diplomats still talk about what needs to be done, and how to make it stand once it is agreed upon. But the television news broadcasts say the bombings continue in Sarajevo. Another Bosnian village with a strange name falls to Serbian militias, and another massacre occurs in an unfamiliar place. Muslims try to retake eastern towns, and Serbs block UN attempts to break through with aid. I have worked in the former Yugoslavia three times over the past two years as a freelance photographer for U.S. magazines. During my first trip to Sarajevo, my guide was killed, a young Spanish photographer I had become friends with died, and my friend who is an Associated Press photographer was wounded. Hundreds of other men, women, and children also died in those two or three weeks in Sarajevo. On my last trip, in late November, I tried to make a portrait of the refugees in Travnik, a small city in the mountains of Bosnia 60 miles northwest of Sarajevo. I spent nine days living in a refugee camp there. These were average Muslim Bosnians. They were not diplomats or generals or politicians. They were moms and dads, electricians and farmers, and children. Their names cannot be used because they have left families behind in villages under Serbian control. There are hundreds of thousands of refugees in Bosnia, primarily because of “ethnic cleansing” by the Serbs. In Travnik and surrounding communities 20,000 to 30,000 refugees are scattered in homes, schools, and sports halls. When the Serbs take an area, they “cleanse” cities and towns of non-Serbs, who make up about two-thirds of the Bosnian population. Just over half are Muslims, and the rest are Croatians. Those “cleansed” are either killed, sent to refugee camps or prison camps, or more often just told to leave or they will be killed. The Muslim population is taking the worst of the atrocities. Since the war began last year [1992], Serbian militias have taken control of close to 70 percent of the country. The refugees lose their homes and belongings. When the Muslims reach a refugee camp, they can go no farther. Many European countries have closed their borders, because they say they have no more room for Bosnian refugees.

Four People Managed to Escape Through the Window
High in the mountains, in a quiet village nine miles from Travnik, are a few remnants of a family from the town of Visegrad, in eastern Bosnia. They are staying in the home of a family they have never met before, just one of thousands of families living in strangers’ homes. I was led there by a 10-year-old boy from a nearby town who spoke little English. The boy told me that I should talk with this family of refugees, because there is a survivor of a massacre there. The family invites me into their one room. The atmosphere is brittle, as if the world is made of eggshells. The first thing they do is make coffee for everyone. It seems that if Bosnian Muslims have absolutely nothing, they will always manage to make coffee for guests. The family consists of a woman, her child, and her parents. In the spring of last year, the woman says, Visegrad had been taken over by Serbs. On the morning of June 13, she talked with a good friend of hers who is Serbian. The friend told her that she should get out of town as fast as possible, and try to go to another village that was safer. When she returned home from visiting her friend, it was already too late. The Serbs were rounding up the men and taking them away. Young women were being taken to “rape hotels” for the soldiers. The people who remained were told to leave at gunpoint. From her neighborhood, there was a group of 64 old men, women, and children. One baby girl was only two days old. They got as far as the Drina River, still in the city of Visegrad. They were stopped on the bridge that leads out of town. There they were searched for money, jewelry, and anything else of value, and it was stolen from them. They stood on the bridge for two hours. During that time, the woman saw about 10 bodies either floating in the river or lying along its banks. The five soldiers holding them on the bridge were all familiar to her. She had grown up with some of them and knew some of their families. The 64 Muslims were led into a house and forced into one room. The soldiers made them take off their clothes, and their clothes were taken away. The people waited in the room for a short time, and then the door was opened and someone threw in a bomb. It was not a regular bomb, but something that burned. In the madness, people tried to escape through the window. Then the commander came in with a machine gun and opened fire. Four people managed to escape through the window; the other 60 were killed, including her mother-in-law, with whom she lived. She herself was shot twice, once in the arm and once in the leg. Of the people who died, she knew the names and families of 26 women, nine elderly men, and 19 children. The oldest was a 93-year-old man, and the youngest was the two-day-old baby girl. She could not keep up with the other three who had escaped. There was a woman, the woman’s son, and an elderly man. But she could only get a short distance away, where she found a sewer and crawled inside. She lay there for three days. A Muslim woman who was still in Visegrad found her, after the other survivors said where they had last seen her. The woman administered some minor first aid, gave her food, and contacted her mother and father, who had also heard that their daughter was still alive.
They managed to come to her. In the evening, they had to crawl and walk, carrying her for more than a mile along sewage ditches to avoid being seen. Then they walked and hitchhiked 30 miles to the Muslim-held town of Gorazde, where she stayed in the hospital 22 days. As soon as she was well enough, she was let out of the hospital to make room for others. Gorazde was under siege at the time, and the city was being bombed. She, her son, and her parents again walked and hitchhiked through dangerous territory for five days until they reached Zenica. During the whole interview, the mother had not said a word. She sat quietly, listening to the story, distractedly serving coffee now and then, but mostly looking down or out the window. The tears were in her eyes as the interview ended, and she was embarrassed for crying. She told the ten-year-old guide that four of her sons also have disappeared. There has been no word from them in six months.

They Have to Leave the Men Behind
A young woman says goodbye to her brother and father as she gets into a car. Her mother, sister, and a younger brother are going with her. They have to leave the men behind at the refugee center in Travnik. If the men were caught traveling, they would be put into the Bosnian Army or imprisoned by the Serbs. The family’s visa is forged, but they are going to try to get out of Bosnia anyway. The women say they are afraid they will never see the older brother and father again.

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR September 19, 1996; Copyright © 1996 by Laura Kay Rozen. Reprinted by permission.
Keeping Bosnia Whole: Why the World Cares—Five Reasons International Officials Aim for United State by Laura Kay Rozen, special to The Christian Science Monitor
Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina—The international officials charged with keeping Bosnia together as a multi-ethnic state liken their task to building a house of cards— one they can only hope will get stronger with time. In the meantime, they say, only one thing will continue to be the cement holding the country together: international will. Although last weekend’s elections bolstered the power of nationalists who would split the country apart, the mediators charged with implementing the Dayton peace accords—the blueprint for peace—are now gearing up to overcome the obstacles to a united Bosnia. But why all the effort? The cost of ethnic partition and secession, they say, would be too high for the West, as well as for the Balkans.
Specifically, there are five reasons driving the international community’s efforts:

Bosnian Serb Independence Won’t Work
Contrary to the nationalist aims of the Bosnian Serbs, independence of their entity, so-called Republika Srpska, is not viable, analysts say. “There is simply no real future for that little jagged piece of territory if it is not integrated into [Bosnia],” said U.S. Balkans envoy, Assistant Secretary of State John Kornblum. “It is not a place that can secede and survive.” The dividing line between the Bosnian Serb area and Muslim-Croat Federation agreed to at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, last November was never meant to be an international border. It is a zig-zagging and impractical line that would impede economic and political development for both sides, as well as be militarily indefensible. “The boundaries between the Serb and Muslim-Croat parts of Bosnia are meant to be fluid,” explains Ambassador Michael Steiner, deputy to UN mediator Carl Bildt. “Besides, the Republika Srpska has nowhere to secede into. [Serbian President Slobodan] Milosevic is not going to risk international ostracization and sanctions to support a secessionist Bosnian Serb state.” [Question 1.25]

A Muslim State in Europe
U.S. and European officials are particularly concerned that a Muslim ministate— what would remain if Bosnia’s Croats and Serbs secede—would be manipulated by radical Islamic countries. “Europe would have a very serious problem. Radical forces are just waiting for this to happen. You would have a Gaza Strip situation here,” said Steiner, referring to the area the Israelis charge is a terrorist hotbed. “At the [Muslim-led Party for Democratic Action] SDA rally at Kosovo stadium last week, there were 70,000 people. At the left and right of the crowd, there were the radicals, shouting in Farsi,” explains Steiner. “The radical fringe of SDA is still a minority. But if things go the wrong way, they will be hardened. These radical forces will become dominant.” It’s not what the SDA wants, he says, “but they will be used.” [Authors’ note: This argument represents a prejudiced point of view that automatically associates countries with Islamic majorities with radical Islamic terrorism. Nevertheless, the reporter is correctly reporting it as a concern that was voiced.]

Regional Example. Diplomats say that international sanction of Serb secession would send a message to other ethnic groups in the region that aggression and genocide are acceptable ways to achieve their territorial and national goals. [Question 1.24] “Look, 200,000 people were killed in this war, 3 million people were forced from their homes, many by ethnic cleansing, men and women were raped, tortured, starved, and slaughtered in Europe’s first death camps since World War II. For them to let the Bosnian Serbs who sanctioned this behavior get their own state is morally despicable,” says a UN official. U.S. Envoy Richard Holbrooke also makes a moral case for why Serb secession cannot be tolerated. “No one objected to the ‘Velvet Divorce’ of Czechoslovakia. It was done in a democratic way. . . . But what happened here is aggression. Because of the nature of the process that unfolded here, it would not have been appropriate to sanction secession or partition.” Analysts say that many areas in the Balkans share conditions that led to ethnic conflict in Bosnia. The Albanians in Kosovo and Macedonia, the Hungarians in Romania and Slovakia, the Muslims in Sandzak share the problems of ethnic minorities in undemocratic states that offer minorities few rights and security, and have equally devastated economies. These minorities and their governments are watching Bosnia closely.

Refugees. Secession would mean refugees would never be able to return to their homes which are now held by other ethnic groups, and would therefore remain a source of political and economic tension. [Question 1.23] Steiner points out that over half of Bosnia’s pre-war population—3 million people—has been displaced by the war, and are now living as refugees abroad or in refugee housing in other parts of Bosnia. The majority of refugees in Europe are Muslims who were ethnically cleansed from areas now controlled by Serbs. Bosnian refugees are creating economic and social burdens in Croatia and Europe. Germany in particular—which has taken in more refugees than any other Western European country—has an interest in sending its 300,000 Bosnian refugees home. “I don’t think we will ever get stabilization without allowing those refugees who want to go back,” says Steiner.

NATO Credibility
Analysts here are concerned that the failure to follow the multiethnic vision of the Dayton accord would devastate the organizations that have been sent here to implement the peace. NATO and U.S. leadership in the Bosnia peace effort would have failed to bring a permanent solution to Europe’s worst conflict since World War II. A breakdown of the multiethnic government would likely require a long-term engagement of NATO forces in Bosnia and would place these forces in a more dangerous situation. Officials say that international will to end a new Bosnian war after the huge effort to implement Dayton would be exhausted. They also say that renewed fighting would seriously damage the credibility of the NATO alliance, whose first active engagement was to send 60,000 forces to enforce the Bosnia peace.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
From ”Erasing History: Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo” Report released by the U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C., May 1999 What began in late February 1998 as a Serb government campaign against the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) has evolved into a comprehensive, premeditated, and systematic program to ethnically cleanse the Serbian province of Kosovo [Question 1.26 - this could confuse students because it states that Kosovo is part of Serbia. It is part of Serbia, but Serbia is part of Yugoslavia (now called Serbia and Montenegro), so the state that it is part of is Yugoslavia (now called Serbia and Montenegro). By this point, students should know that Serbia is not a state.] of its roughly 1.7 million ethnic Albanian residents (also referred to as Kosovar Albanians). Because Serbian authorities have denied access to international monitors, documentation efforts have been too fragmented to estimate definitively the number of missing and dead. . . . The term “ethnic cleansing” first came into use during the mass expulsions of ethnic Muslims from towns in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992; since then, media outlets, human rights groups and governments have used it on enough occasions to require careful definition. As used in this report, ethnic cleansing is defined as the systematic and forced removal of the members of an ethnic group from a community or communities in order to change the ethnic composition of a given region. In Bosnia, many ethnically cleansed towns and regions were eventually reoccupied by members of another ethnic group (who themselves often had been cleansed). [Question 1.30] From the beginning, the [Serbian] regime in Belgrade has deliberately misled the international community and its own people about its ethnic cleansing campaign. Counterinsurgency operations against the KLA began in late February and early March 1998, when Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs Police (MUP) attacked the villages of Likosane and Cirez. These attacks resulted in the death of 25 Kosovar Albanians, of which as many as 14 may have been summarily executed. . . . In late March 1999, Serbian forces dramatically increased the scope and pace of their efforts, moving away from selective targeting of towns and regions suspected of KLA sympathies toward a sustained and systematic effort to ethnically cleanse the entire province of Kosovo. To date, Serb forces conducting ethnic cleansing operations have not yet tried to repopulate the over 500 towns and villages from which residents have been evicted. Some villages are now used as cover for Serb military emplacements. Many, however, remain depopulated. NATO is committed to ensuring the return of all Kosovars to their homes. Since March 19, 1999, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that over 700,000 Kosovars have fled to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (211,000), Albania (404,000), Bosnia-Herzegovina (17,000) the Republic of Montenegro (62,000), and elsewhere (as of May 5, 1999). [See Figure 13.10.] The Governments of Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia, and Montenegro have provided land for camps, logistical support, and protection. NATO forces in Macedonia and Albania have helped establish transit camps. Other governments have begun to accept varying numbers of refugees to ease the pressure on the so-called “front-line” states. Even with such support, however, the front- line states will continue to bear the brunt of these mass expulsions, which has badly burdened the economies and upset the political balances of these states. Although the media has focused almost exclusively on the story of the hundreds of thousands of exhausted refugees arriving at camps in Macedonia and Albania, another story has escaped their attention, in large part because Serbian authorities have not permitted entry into Kosovo. Those left behind in Kosovo—known as internally displaced persons, or IDPs—suffer under much worse conditions than even those faced by refugees. While independent sources have not been able to confirm reports of starvation among IDPs in Kosovo, many in all likelihood are experiencing food shortages, malnutrition, health problems, and other types of deprivation as a result of having to hide from Serbian forces for weeks in neighboring mountains and forests. Needless to say, they also likely face attack by Serbian forces. According to some reports, VJ [Yugoslav Army] units have thrown grenades from helicopters at fleeing IDPs. Shelling of civilians reportedly has been used to herd groups of refugees for later deportation.

From ”Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo: An Accounting (Executive Summary)” Report released by the U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C., December 1999 “Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo: An Accounting” is a new chapter in our effort to document the extent of human rights and humanitarian law violations in Kosovo, and to convey the size and scope of the Kosovo conflict. The information in this report is drawn from refugee accounts, NGO [nongovernmental organizations] documentation, press accounts, and declassified information from government and international organization sources. The atrocities against Kosovar Albanians documented in this report occurred primarily between March and late June, 1999. A central question is the number of Kosovar Albanian victims of Serbian forces in Kosovo. Many bodies were found when KFOR [U.N. Kosovo Peacekeeping Force] and the ICTY [International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia] entered Kosovo in June 1999. The evidence is also now clear that Serbian forces conducted a systematic campaign to burn or destroy bodies, or to bury the bodies, then rebury them to conceal evidence of Serbian crimes. On June 4, at the end of the conflict, the Department of State issued the last of a series of weekly ethnic cleansing reports, available at www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/rpt_990604_ksvo_ethnic.html, concluding that at least 6,000 Kosovar Albanians were victims of mass murder, with an unknown number of victims of individual killings, and an unknown number of bodies burned or destroyed by Serbian forces throughout the conflict. The Prosecutor said her office had exhumed 2,108 bodies from 195 of the 529 known mass graves. . . .Enough evidence has emerged to conclude that probably around 10,000 Kosovar Albanians were killed by Serbian forces [see Figure 13.11]. Death represents only one facet of Serbian actions in Kosovo. Over 1.5 million Kosovar Albanians—at least 90 percent of the estimated 1998 Kosovar Albanian population of Kosovo—were forcibly expelled from their homes. Tens of thousands of homes in at least 1,200 cities, towns, and villages have been damaged or destroyed. During the conflict, Serbian forces and paramilitaries implemented a systematic campaign to ethnically cleanse Kosovo—aspects of this campaign include the following:
• Forcible Displacement of Kosovar Albanian Civilians: Serbian authorities conducted a campaign of forced population movement. In contrast to actions taken during 1998, Yugoslav Army units and armed civilians joined the police in systematically expelling Kosovar Albanians at gunpoint from both villages and larger towns in Kosovo.
• Looting of Homes and Businesses: There are numerous reports of Serbian forces robbing residents before burning their homes. Another round of robbery occurred as Serbian forces stole from fleeing Kosovars as they crossed the border to Montenegro, Albania, or Macedonia.
• Widespread Burning of Homes: Over 1,200 residential areas were at least partially burned after late March, 1999. Kosovar Albanians have reported that over 500 villages were burned after March, 1999.
• Use of Human Shields: Refugees claim that Serbian forces used Kosovar Albanians to escort military convoys and shield facilities throughout the province. Other reporting indicates that Serbian forces intentionally positioned ethnic Albanians at sites they believed were targets for NATO airstrikes.
• Detentions: Serbian forces systematically separated military-aged men from the general population as Kosovars were expelled. These men were detained in facilities ranging from cement factories to prisons. Many of these detainees were forced to dig trenches and were physically abused. At least 2,000 Kosovar Albanians remain in detention in around a dozen Serbian prisons today.
• Summary Executions: There are accounts of summary executions at about 500 sites across Kosovo.
• Exhumation of Mass Graves: Serbian forces burned, destroyed, or exhumed bodies from mass graves in an attempt to destroy evidence. Some were reinterred in individual graves.
• Rape: There are numerous accounts indicating that the organized and individual rape of Kosovar Albanian women by Serbian forces was widespread. For example, Serbian forces systematically raped women in Djakovica and Pec, and in some cases rounded up women and took them to hotels where they were raped by troops under encouragement of their commanders. Rape is most likely an underreported atrocity because of the stigma attached to the victims in traditional Kosovar Albanian society.
• Violations of Medical Neutrality: Kosovar Albanian physicians, patients and medical facilities were systematically attacked. Many health care facilities were used as protective cover for military activities; NGOs report the destruction by Serbian forces of at least 100 clinics, pharmacies, and hospitals.
• Identity Cleansing: Kosovar Albanians were systematically stripped of identity and property documents including passports, land titles, automobile license plates, identity cards, and other forms of documentation. As much as 50 percent of the population may be without documentation. By systematically destroying schools, places of worship, and hospitals, Serbian forces sought to destroy social identity and the fabric of Kosovar Albanian society. [Question 1.31]
• Aftermath: Following the withdrawal of Serbian forces in June, Kosovo saw manifestations of a new set of human rights problems. These include acts of retribution against the Serb minority, including the killing of 200–400 Serb residents. In addition, as many as 23,000 conscientious objectors, draft evaders, and deserters in Serbia are threatened with legal action.

BY THE AUTHORS
Update on the Former Yugoslavia to 2003
Bosnia
The fighting in Bosnia described in these readings was not easily brought to a halt. As definitive evidence of genocide mounted, the United Nations and North Atlantic Treaty Organization finally moved to stop the bloodshed. A “no flight” zone was declared over Bosnia, and international economic sanctions were imposed on Yugoslavia. Eventually, the ban on weapons imports into Bosnia—originally designed to douse the fire—was lifted to enable the Muslims to defend themselves. The Bosnian Muslims then joined forces with the Croats to mount a counteroffensive against Serbian strongholds. The Croats successfully regained control of the Serb- populated regions of Croatia, and the Muslims succeeded in reestablishing some territorial corridors between their safe havens. Finally, an on-again, off-again cease-fire was reached, and U.N. peacekeeping forces from a variety of countries, including the United States and Canada, moved in. Bosnian Serbs at that time controlled about 70 percent of Bosnia, with the Muslim- Croat alliance controlling the rest. As the economic embargo began causing real hardship, Yugoslavia’s President Milosevic pressured the Bosnian Serbs to the peace table. In 1995, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher brokered a peace deal known as the Dayton Accords that all parties reluctantly accepted. Bosnia was to remain a multination state but divided into two autonomous parts. The Bosnian Serbs received 49 percent of the territory, which they renamed Republica Srpska, with 51percent for the still-combined Muslim-Croat Federation (see Figure 13.12). Notice how the boundaries were designed to make each group’s territory a contiguous whole, even if it means having a narrow corridor as a connector. This way, there is free unrestricted movement within each ethnic republic and one less excuse to restart the war. In the Muslim-Croat Federation, the predominantly Croatian area of Bosnia known as Herceg-Bosna had evolved into a ministate of sorts, with stronger ties to Zagreb than to Sarajevo. While all three nations have some “multiculturalists” who favor a unified Bosnia and nationalists who favor separatism or irredentism, a July 1996 poll found that 95 percent of Bosnian Serbs and two-thirds of Bosnian Croats opposed a unified country. Only Muslims favored keeping Bosnia whole. [Question 1.33] The U.S. Department of State’s policy was that, unless indicted war criminals are brought to justice, per the Dayton Accords, the festering rivalries that produced the war in the first place would prevent a lasting peace. Some European governments, however, argued that punishing the Serbs would be counterproductive because it is more important to rebuild Bosnia economically so that when the peacekeeping troops do pull out, there will be a functioning economy so that all three ethnic groups will have a stake in preserving the peace. A large contingent of U.S. troops participate in the Bosnia Peacekeeping force (SFOR), and the United States has poured billions of dollars into Bosnia to help with reconstruction, humanitarian assistance, economic development, and military reconstruction. As of early 2001, however, the new U.S. president, George W. Bush, was questioning whether to keep U.S. peacekeeping troops in Bosnia. [Question 1.33]

Kosovo The United States and its European allies bear some responsibility for the Kosovo crisis. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was a small fringe organization with little popular support for armed insurrection in Kosovo until after the Dayton peace conference. The conference excluded any Kosovar Albanian delegates, and many Albanians concluded that “the reward for nonviolence was international neglect” (Hooper, 1999).6 When increased Albanian unrest led to a Serbian crackdown in 1998, the U.S. unwillingness to follow through on its threats of air strikes against Yugoslavian military targets emboldened the Serbs and helped convince the Albanians to take matters into their own hands. International attempts to broker a peace settlement in February 1999 failed dismally, as Yugoslavian military, police, and paramilitary units amassed within and around Kosovo. Having learned its lesson in Bosnia, NATO responded to Serbian attacks much faster in Kosovo, although not fast enough to stop the Serbs from ethnically cleansing most Albanians from Kosovo (see U.S. Department of State reports). On March 24, 1999, two weeks after the start of the Serbian offensive, NATO began launching air strikes against Yugoslavian military, police, television, transportation, electricity, and water supply targets. The air war eventually crippled Yugoslavia, and two to three months after the fighting began, Yugoslavia accepted a cease-fire and began to withdraw. Peacekeeping troops have been contributed by 19 NATO members (including the United States, Canada, and almost all of their European allies) as well as 18 non-NATO countries (including Russia, other Slavic former Soviet states such as Ukraine, other Muslim former Soviet states such as Azerbaijan, and Islamic Middle Eastern states such as Jordan). Peacekeeping forces are involved in rebuilding infrastructure and institutions and removing land mines but have been unable to completely prevent Albanians from revenge attacks and ethnic cleansing against the remaining Serbs. [Question 1.33] An estimated 500 to 1,000 Serbs have been murdered since the Yugoslavian Army pulled out. Many Kosovar Serbs have abandoned their homes and fled to Serbia proper, fueling another chapter in the long annals of Serbian victim- hood. As in Bosnia, a de facto partition has taken place, with Serbs concentrating in North Mitrovica, an area adjacent to Serbia and home to a vast gold and zinc mining complex.
The UN Security Council Resolution 1244 calls for preparing Kosovo for “substantial autonomy and self-government.” In interim elections in October 2000, Ibrahim Rugova’s Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) won the majority of seats over two other parties run by former KLA leaders. All three major parties advocated eventual independence for Kosovo. As of March 2003, though technically still part of Serbia, Kosovo continues to be governed by the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), as it has been since June 1999. [Question 1.33]

Macedonia
In March 2001, ethnic violence erupted in Macedonia, one of the six former republics of Yugoslavia. Bordered by Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece, Macedonia’s population is 23 percent Albanian (Figure 13.8, Table 13.1). Macedonia had been lauded as the only former Yugoslavian republic that had seceded without bloodshed. Its multinational population was thought to coexist peacefully. Less than two years after the war in Kosovo ended, however, Albanian nationalist fighters and their weapons began crossing the border from Kosovo to attack Slavic Macedonian targets in the mountainous Albanian majority zone. The rebels called for a change in the Macedonian constitution to upgrade the status of the Albanian minority—a change that would essentially partition the country along ethnic lines. Although the situation sounds hauntingly familiar, Macedonia’s situation contains some unique elements. When Macedonia seceded from Yugoslavia, the neighboring state of Greece refused to recognize its independence until it agreed to change its official name to the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) to distinguish it from the Macedonian region of Greece. Meanwhile, the neighboring state of Bulgaria has questioned whether Macedonians are a nation at all or really an offshoot of the Slavic Bulgarian nation. There is also a small Serbian minority (2 percent) in Macedonia. [Question 1.33]

Yugoslavia
In one of the most unexpected and dramatic events of the entire saga, the Serbian people succeeded in overthrowing President Slobodan Milosevic, the architect of a decade of ethnic cleansing. The Serbian people, although still strongly nationalistic, had grown tired of war, air raids, poverty, and ostracism from the international community. Average income had dropped to $40 per month, and the streets of Belgrade had become one large flea market. Elections were held in September 2000, and by all reports the opposition party triumphed, although the government denied it. In early October 2000, after a general strike, massive crowds began gathering in the streets of Belgrade for speeches and protests. On October 5 the crowd stormed the Parliament building, and with Serbian troops unwilling to fire on their own people, the Milosevic era came to a quick, bloodless end. In new elections on December 24, 2000, moderate reformer Vojislav Kostunica was elected President of Yugoslavia with the promise to complete democratic reforms. Many thorny issues faced the new regime, including international war crime indictments against former Serbian leaders, economic reconstruction, trade relations with other former Yugoslavian republics, and pressure for unification with, and protection of, Serbs in Bosnia and Kosovo. Yugoslavia was readmitted to the United Nations in 2001.

Montenegro
Meanwhile, the party in Montenegro favoring independence from Yugoslavia and its Serb majority narrowly won national elections in April 2001. Montenegrins, who comprise about two-thirds of the population, share a similar religion and language with the Serbs but historically have developed separately from them (Figure 13.8, Table 13.1). Prior to the downfall of Milosevic, the United States was encouraging Montenegrins to seek independence as a way of weakening the Milosevic regime in Yugoslavia. Now that Milosevic has fallen, however, the United States has done an about-face and is discouraging them because independence for any new Balkan nation could send a “green light” to the others and precipitate new wars. In 2002, the Serbian and Montenegran regions of Yugoslavia began negotiations to forge a looser relationship. These talks became a reality on February 4, 2003, when their parliament restructured the country into a federation of two republics; The new state is now officially called Serbia and Montenegro. [Question 1.32] The two confederate republics agreed to hold a referendum in each republic in three years on whether to opt for full independence. That the road to peace and reconstruction is not smooth was made abundantly clear on March 12, 2003, only one month after the new confederation was formed. A sniper killed the prime minister of Serbia, Zoran Djindjic, the charismatic philosopher-politician who rallied the people to oust Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Former members of the Milosevic regime now involved in organized crime are believed to be behind the assassination. The reform-minded and pro-Western Djindjic had threatened to arrest Gen. Ratko Mladic, who is wanted by the tribunal for war crimes in Bosnia. [Question 1.33]

Name: _____________________________ Instructor: _________________________

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: Nations, States, and Nation-States

ACTIVITY 2: IRAQAPHOBIA

QUESTIONS
(Note: Answers to questions marked by * cannot be obtained directly in the readings. You’ll need to think critically about the readings and apply concepts properly to figure them out.)
Section A: From Ancient Times to the Creation of Iraq Refer to Iraq: A Country Study, the sections on “Historical Background” and “Enter Britain.”
2.1. What is the ancient name of the area presently called Iraq? Mesopotamia

Name one of the ancient civilizations that flourished there. Sumer, Babylon, or Assyria

2.2. What are the two main rivers running through the region? Tigris and Euphrates

2.3. Throughout Iraqi history many autonomous social units, its lack of stone for road building, its location at the eastern flank of the Arab world, and the periods when the irrigation systems fell into disrepair—all of these were forces of political fragmentation. (centralization or fragmentation)

2.4. What outside empire dominated this region in the several centuries prior to World War I? Ottoman Empire.

2.5. After World War I, control of Iraq was given to what country? Great Britain or United Kingdom. What international organization gave control of Iraq to them?
League of Nations.

2.6. The boundaries of Iraq were drawn by Great Britain with virtually no consideration of natural frontiers or traditional tribal and ethnic settlements or Iraq’s need for a port on the Persian Gulf.

2.7. Iraq became independent in what year? 1932

2.8. Iraq’s first type of government was monarchy. (communism, democracy, military dictatorship, or monarchy).

Section B: Nation and State Geography Refer to Iraq: A Country Study, sections on “Religious Background,” “Language Background,” “Kurdish Background,” and “Religion/Language Summary” and Figures 13.15, 13.17, and 3.6.
2.9. In which half-century did Islam arrive in the area that is now Iraq (see Figure 3.6. in Chapter 3)? 600-650 A.D.

2.10. What historical event is responsible for the divide between Sunni Moslems and Shia Moslems?
The Shiat Ali's refusal to recognize Muawiyah as caliph.

2.11. What are the five pillars of Islam? Give the Arabic words and explain each one.
These are the recitation of the shahada (“There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his prophet”), daily prayer (salat), almsgiving (zakat), fasting (sawm), and pilgrimage (hajj).

2.12. What is the official language of Iraq from its inception to the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein? Arabic

2.13. Iraq is a state. (nation, state, nation-state)* [Figure 13.15 and 13.17]

2.14. The Kurds are a nation (nation, state, nation-state), and their homeland overlaps which five countries? Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Azerbaijan, Iran [also see Figure 13.15 and 13.17]

2.15. Fill in the following table, based on your readings and maps:
| |Language |Religious |% of Iraqi Population |Region of Iraq (e.g., north, west, |
| | |Affiliation | |central, etc.) |
|Iraqi Shia |Arabic |Shiite |60-65% |South |
|Iraqi Sunni Arabs |Arabic |Sunni |13% |Central |
|Iraqi Kurds |Kurdish |Sunni |19% |North |
|Kuwaiti majority |Arabic |Sunni |n.a. |n.a. |
|Iranian majority |Persian (Farsi) |Shiite |n.a. |n.a. |

2.16. According to the "Religion/Language Summary" of the Iraq Country Study, Saddam Hussein, like most past rulers of Iraq, belonged to which ethnic group? Sunni Arabs

Section C: The Iran-Iraq War Refer to Iraq: A Country Study, the section on “Enter Saddam," including text box on "U.S. Support of Saddam Hussein," and The Long Road to War, section on "1980--Geopolitics and the Iran-Iraq War," and Figures 13.15, 13.17, and 13.18.

2.17. In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran. What was the importance of the territory over which Iran and Iraq were fighting?
The Shatt al-Arab is the only outlet of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers to the Persian Gulf. Without it, Iraq would be landlocked, and would have to rely on other countries for export of oil and import of other goods.

2.18. This territory, however important, was not the only reason for Iraq’s attack on Iran. According to the Iraq Country Study, Saddam Hussein was "threatened by the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and by its potential influence on Iraq's majority population." Why? [Refer to the table in Question 2.15.*, and Figures 13.15 and 13.17]
Most Iranians are Shia Moslems, as are the majority of people in Iraq. But the ethnic group with the most power in Iraq was Saddam Hussein's Arabic Sunni Moslems. Saddam feared that the Shia Moslems in Iraq might side with their Shia brethren in Iran.

2.19. Which country did the United States support in the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988?
Iraq

Why?
After radical Islamic fundamentalists overthrew the pro-American, westernized Shah of Iran in 1979 and took U.S. embassy employees hostage, the Reagan administration was eager to use Saddam as a “surrogate” against Iran. The U.S. also cited "freedom of navigation" as a reason to support Iraq, because Iran controls the opening to the Persian Gulf.

2.20. Name three specific kinds of support the United States offered to Saddam Hussein’s regime during the Iran-Iraq war. satellite photos, tanks, “dual-use” (commercial-military) equipment such as database software, helicopters, video surveillance equipment, and chemical analysis equipment, and naval support against the Iranian navy

Section D: The Gulf War
Refer to Iraq: A Country Study, sections on “Enter Saddam” and The Long Road to War, sections on "1990-1991: The Buildup to War," "1991: The Gulf War and It’s Aftermath," and "1991-1998: Trying to Disarm Saddam," [Errata: Question 2.25 Is found in the Long Road to War section "2001-2003: Iraq - Test Case of a New Foreign Policy”] and Figures 13.15 and 13.17.

2.21. In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait.

2.22. What were Iraq’s reasons for the invasion? (Note: Be sure to check both the Iraq Country Study and The Long Road to War for reasons, because different reasons are given.)
Saddam Hussein accused Kuwait of illegally pumping oil from Iraq’s Rumaila oil field, which spans the border; of not paying off its debt to Iraq for defending the Arab nation against the Persians (Iran); and of refusing to negotiate Iraq’s needs for a deepwater port at the Shatt al Arab
Also stated reason: after its eight-year war with Iran, Iraq is billions of dollars in debt and angry with its Arab neighbors about the low price of oil, its chief source of cash.

2.23. The people of the invaded country differ from Saddam’s Sunni/Arab nation on the basis of (check one--see table in Question 2.15): [Figure 13.15 and 13.17]

language _____ religious group _____ both _____ neither X____

2.24. After the Gulf War in 1991, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 687 and required Saddam to to disclose, destroy, or render harmless all weapons of mass destruction, or must destroy his weapons and allow inspection of all weapons facilities by a U.N. Special Commission, known as UNSCOM

2.25. One year after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center towers in New York, the Bush Administration released its National Security Strategy, which came to be known as the Bush Doctrine. What were the three key elements of the Bush Doctrine?

1. America will exploit its military and economic power to encourage "free and open societies."
2. The U.S. will never allow its military supremacy to be challenged as it was during the Cold War.
3. When America's vital interests are at stake, it will act alone, if necessary.

Section E: The Invasion of Iraq and the Overthrow of Saddam Hussein Refer to The Long Road to War, sections on “2001-2003: Iraq Test-Case of New Foreign Policy," "Saddam Overthrown," and "Occupation and Reconstruction of Iraq," and to How to Get Out of Iraq, sections 1-4.

2.26. What were the two reasons publicly stated by the United States at the time for their invasion of Iraq in March 2003? The U.S. Secretary of State outlined the evidence that Iraq was purposely concealing its biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons of mass destruction program. He also tried to make a case for growing Iraqi involvement with the Al Qaeda terrorist organization.

2.27. What major countries supported the U.S.-led invasion?

UK and Australia. Students could also list Spain, Qatar, Kuwait, Poland, and Bulgaria,

Which major countries opposed it?
France and Germany led the opposition. Students could also list Russia, China, and Turkey

2.28. According to Peter Galbraith, the main thing that went right in the U.S. invasion/occupation of Iraq was the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party. Give two of Galbraith's specific examples of why it was "one of the most cruel and inhumane regimes in the second half of the twentieth century."

Any two of the following:

1. In the 1980s, the Iraqi armed forces and security services systematically destroyed more than four thousand Kurdish villages and several small cities, attacked over two hundred Kurdish villages and towns with chemical weapons in 1987 and 1988, and organized the deportation and execution of up to 182,000 Kurdish civilians. This was considered genocide.

2. In the 1990s the Saddam Hussein regime drained the marshes of southern Iraq, displacing 500,000 people, half of whom fled to Iran, and killing some 40,000. In addition to destroying the five-thousand-year-old Marsh Arab civilization, draining the marshes did vast ecological damage to one of the most important wetlands systems on the planet. This too was considered genocide.

3. Tens of thousands perished in purges from 1979 on, and as many as 300,000 Shiites were killed in the six months following the collapse of the March 1991 Shiite uprising. One mass grave near Hilla may contain as many as 30,000 bodies.

4. The Iraqi military initiated a series of chemical weapons attacks on at least forty-nine Kurdish villages in the Dihok Governorate (or province) near the Syrian and Turkish borders. Iraq had used nerve and mustard agents on tens of thousands of civilians

2.29. According to Peter Galbraith, what are some important things that went wrong in the U.S. invasion/occupation of Iraq? Fill in the blanks to complete each one.

Discontent with the U.S.-led occupation boiled over into an uprising in the Shiite areas of Iraq and a persistent insurgency in the Sunni Triangle.

U.S. credibility abroad has been undermined by the failure to find weapons of mass destruction

Unchecked looting effectively gutted every important public institution in the city with the notable exception of the Oil Ministry.

The U.S. official in charge of prisons decided to work with the warden of Abu Ghraib prison, apparently unaware of its fearsome reputation as the place where tens of thousands perished under Saddam Hussein.

Section F: Will Iraq Stay Together?: The Geography of Nations and States
Refer to How to Get Out of Iraq, sections 5-7, What the New Constitution Says (including election map), and Figures 13.15, 13.17, and 13.23.

2.30 Since 1991, the Iraqi Kurds have effectively governed themselves through the semi-independent Kurdistan Regional Government. This is best described as a form of __Regional Autonomy____ (federal state, nation, nation-state, regional autonomy, or unitary state).* See Introduction and Key Terms

2.31 The people of Kurdistan almost unanimously prefer independence to being part of Iraq. This is best described as an example of ______Separatism (because it’s a desire to break off, not the actual breakoff)____. (ethnonationalism, irredentism, nationalism, separatism, or secession)* See Introduction and Key Terms

2.32 Iranian Shiites, such as the Ayatollah al-Sistani and, from the grave, Ayatollah Khomeini, have enormous political and spiritual influence in southern Iraq. Hypothetically, if the Shiites in Iraq wanted to join their territory with that of their fellow Shiites in Iran, or if the government in Iran tried to claim the Shia region of southern Iraq on the basis of a common national religion, the political geography term that would describe this desire best is ___Irredentism___. (ethnonationalism, irredentism, or nationalism)* See Introduction and Key Terms

2.33 In contrast to Shiite Arabs and Sunni Kurds, Sunni Arabs have always felt a strong sense of ___Nationalism____ towards Iraq as a whole. (nationalism, ethnonationalism, or irredentism)

2.34 According to Galbraith, “the breakup of Iraq is not a realistic possibility for the present.” Which outside countries have the most to lose if the Iraqi Kurds become independent?

_Turkey________ _____Iran_________ __Syria________

Why?

Turkey, Iran, and Syria, all of which have substantial Kurdish populations, fear the precedent that would be set if Iraqi Kurdistan became independent

2.35 Why wouldn’t the Sunni Arabs want to divorce themselves from the Kurds and Shiites and create a separate Sunni-majority state of their own in the central and western regions where they are a majority?

The Sunni Arabs do not have the resources to support an independent state of their own. (Iraq's largest oil fields are in the Shiite south or in the disputed territory of Kirkuk.)

2.36 If the three main nations of Iraq were to try to divide Iraq into three separate ethnically based independent states, which “unresolved territorial issue” would be most “explosive” and possibly plunge Iraq into violent conflict? ______Kirkuk________ (name a city)

What makes this issue so explosive and contentious?

The Kurds claim it as part of historic Kurdistan. They demand that the process of Arabization of the region—which some say goes back to the 1950s—should be reversed. The Kurds who were driven out of Kirkuk by policies of successive Iraqi regimes should, they say, return home, while Arab settlers in the region are repatriated to other parts of Iraq. While many Iraqi Arabs concede that the Kurds suffered an injustice, they also say that the human cost of correcting it is too high. Moreover, backed by Turkey, ethnic Turkmen assert that Kirkuk is a Turkmen city and that they should enjoy the same status as the Kurds. It will be difficult to resolve the status of Kirkuk within a single Iraq; it will be impossible if the country breaks up into two or three units.

On October 15, 2005, the Iraqi people voted to approve a new constitution for Iraq. Answer the following questions about it.

2.37 Which form of government did they adopt?

___ Unitary state ___ Unitary state with regional autonomy ___ Federal state _X_ Federal state with regional autonomy

2.38 Which nation would likely be most in favor of each of the following parts of the constitution? (* While you may be able to find answers to some parts of questions 2.38 and 2.39 by going back through the Galbraith article and the Iraq Country Study, what we have in mind here is for you to use the general knowledge you have learned about the three nations of Iraq.)

“Its Arab people are part of the Arab nation.”
_X_ Sunni Arabs ___ Shiite Arabs ___ Kurds ___ All groups

“Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation. No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.”
___ Sunni Arabs _X_ Shiite Arabs ___ Kurds ___ All groups

“No law can be passed that contradicts the principles of democracy.”
___ Sunni Arabs _X_ Shiite Arabs ___ Kurds ___ All groups

“Arabic and Kurdish are the two official languages for Iraq. Iraqis are guaranteed the right to educate their children in their mother tongues.”
___ Sunni Arabs ___ Shiite Arabs _X_ Kurds ___ All groups

“The federal authority will maintain the unity of Iraq, its integrity, independence, sovereignty and its democratic federal system.”
_X_ Sunni Arabs ___ Shiite Arabs ___ Kurds ___ All groups

“The governments of regions have the right to practice legislative, executive and judicial powers according to this constitution, except in what is listed as exclusive powers of the federal authorities. The regional authority has the right to amend the implementation of the federal law in the region in the case of a contradiction between the federal and regional laws in matters that do not pertain to the exclusive powers of the federal authorities.”
___ Sunni Arabs ___ Shiite Arabs _X_ Kurds ___ All groups

“The region's government is responsible for all that is required to manage the region, in particular establishing and organizing internal security forces for the region such as police, security and regional guards.”
___ Sunni Arabs ___ Shiite Arabs _X_ Kurds ___ All groups

2.39 Which nation would likely be least in favor of each of the following parts of the constitution?

“Entities or trends that advocate, instigate, justify or propagate racism, terrorism, “takfir” (declaring someone an infidel), or sectarian cleansing are banned, especially the Saddamist Baath Party in Iraq and its symbols, under any name.”
_X_ Sunni Arabs ___ Shiite Arabs ___ Kurds ___ All groups

The federal authorities will have “exclusive powers” over foreign policy and national defense.
___ Sunni Arabs ___ Shiite Arabs _X__ Kurds ___ All groups

“A quota [on revenues from oil and gas] should be defined for a specified time for affected regions that were deprived in an unfair way by the former regime or later on, in a way to ensure balanced development in different parts of the country.”
_X_ Sunni Arabs ___ Shiite Arabs ___ Kurds ___ All groups

►ACTIVITY 2 READINGS

►THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Adapted by the authors from: Iraq: A Country Study
Helen Chapin Metz, editor.

Historical Background
Iraq became a sovereign, independent state in 1932. Although the modern state, the Republic of Iraq, is quite young, the history of the land and its people dates back more than 5,000 years. Indeed, Iraq contains the world’s richest known archaeological sites. Here, in ancient Mesopotamia (“the land between the rivers”), the first civilization—that of Sumer—appeared in the Near East, followed later by Babylon and Assyria. [Question 2.1]. Despite the millennium separating the two epochs, Iraqi history displays a continuity shaped by adaptation to the ebbings and flowings of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. [Question 2.2]. (Figure 13.14). Allowed to flow unchecked, the rivers wrought destruction in terrible floods that inundated whole towns. When the rivers were controlled by irrigation dikes and other waterworks, the land became extremely fertile.
Mesopotamia could also be an extremely threatening environment, however, driving its peoples to seek security from the vicissitudes of nature. Throughout Iraqi history, various groups have formed autonomous, self-contained social units that exerted a powerful fragmenting force on Iraqi culture. Two other factors that have inhibited political centralization are the absence of stone and Iraq’s geographic location as the eastern flank of the Arab world [Question 2.3]. [see Chapter 2, Activity 1: Middle East Culture Region]. For much of Iraqi history, the lack of stone has severely hindered the building of roads. As a result, many parts of the country have remained beyond government control. Also, because it borders non-Arab Turkey and Iran and because of the great agricultural potential of its river valley, Iraq has attracted waves of ethnically diverse migrations. Although this influx of people has enriched Iraqi culture, it also has disrupted the country’s internal balance and has led to deep-seated schisms.

Throughout Iraqi history, the conflict between political fragmentation and centralization has been reflected in the struggles among tribes and cities for the food- producing flatlands of the river valleys. When a central power neglected to keep the waterworks in repair, land fell into disuse, and tribes attacked settled peoples for precious and scarce agricultural commodities. For nearly 600 years, between the collapse of the Abbasid Empire in the thirteenth century and the waning years of the Ottoman Empire in the late nineteenth century, government authority was tenuous and tribal Iraq was, in effect, autonomous. [Question 2.4]. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Iraq’s disconnected—and often antagonistic—ethnic, religious, and tribal social groups professed little or no allegiance to the central government. As a result, the all-consuming concern of contemporary Iraqi history has been the forging of a nation-state out of this diverse and conflict-ridden social structure and the concomitant transformation of parochial loyalties, both tribal and ethnic, into a national identity.

Enter Britain
By the beginning of the twentieth century, enfeebled Ottoman rule had invited intense competition among European powers for commercial benefits and for spheres of influence. The British feared that a hostile German presence in the Fertile Crescent would threaten British oil interests in Iran and perhaps even India itself. In 1914 when the British discovered that Turkey, home of the Ottomans, was entering the war on the side of the Germans, British forces from India landed, and by March 1917 the British had captured Baghdad. At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, under the League of Nations Covenant, Iraq was formally made a Class-A mandate entrusted to Britain. [Question 2.5]. [A mandate was a mechanism for the winning powers of World War I to temporarily take over the former colonies of the losing powers and prepare them for independence.] The League of Nations actually granted a broad swath of formerly Ottoman territory to Britain, from Egypt to Iraq, as mandated territory. As the controlling power, Britain was able to define the boundaries of the countries to be created out of the mandated territory. Britain defined the territorial limits of Iraq with little correspondence to natural frontiers or traditional tribal and ethnic settlements. Britain also paid little heed to Iraq’s need for a port at the Tigris’ and Euphrates’ outlet to the Persian Gulf, a delta area known as the Shatt al Arab. Britain made Kuwait a separate territory and eventually a separate state, pinching Iraq’s access to the Gulf. [Question 2.6]. Between 1918 and 1958, British policy in Iraq had far-reaching effects. At the Cairo Conference of 1921, the British chose Emir Faisal ibn Hussain as Iraq’s first King. The British saw in Faisal a leader who possessed sufficient nationalist and Islamic credentials to have broad appeal, but as a Saudi Arabian he was also vulnerable enough to remain dependent on their support. Faisal traced his descent from the family of the Prophet Muhammad, and his ancestors had held political authority in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina since the tenth century. From 1921 to 1932, Iraq remained a British mandate territory that Faisal ruled with the permission and guidance of the British. After independence from Britain in 1932, [Question 2.7] the monarchy [Question 2.8] lasted until a coup d’etat ended the reign of Faisal’s grandson, King Faisal II, in 1958. Ultimately, the British-created monarchy suffered from a chronic legitimacy crisis: The concept of a monarchy was alien to Iraq. Despite his Islamic and pan-Arab credentials, Faisal was not an Iraqi, and, no matter how effectively he ruled, Iraqis saw the monarchy as a British creation. The majority of Iraqis were divorced from the political process, and the process itself failed to develop procedures for resolving internal conflicts other than rule by decree and the frequent use of repressive measures. Also, because the formative experiences of Iraq’s post-1958 political leadership centered around clandestine opposition activity, decision-making and government activity in general have been veiled in secrecy. Furthermore, because the country lacks deeply rooted national political institutions, political power frequently has been monopolized by a small elite, the members of which are often bound by close family or tribal ties.

Religious Background
Islam came to Iraq by way of the Arabian Peninsula, where in A.D. 610, Muhammad— a merchant in the Arabian town of Mecca—began to preach the first of a series of revelations granted him by God through the angel Gabriel. A fervent monotheist, Muhammad denounced the polytheism of his fellow Meccans, which because the town’s economy was based in part on a thriving pilgrimage business to the shrine called the Kaaba and numerous other pagan religious sites in the area, earned him the enmity of the town’s leaders. In A.D. 622 he and a group of followers accepted an invitation to settle in the town of Yathrib, later known as Medina. The move, or hegira, marks the beginning of the Islamic era and of Islam as a force in history; the Muslim calendar begins in A.D. 622. In Medina, Muhammad continued to preach and eventually defeated his detractors in battle. He consolidated the temporal and the spiritual leadership in his person before his death in A.D. 632. After Muhammad’s death, his followers compiled those of his words regarded as coming directly from God into the Quran (or Koran), the holy scriptures of Islam.

After Muhammad’s death, the leaders of the Muslim community consensually chose Abu Bakr, the Prophet’s father-in-law and one of his earliest followers, to succeed him. At that time, some persons favored Ali, Muhammad’s cousin and the husband of his daughter Fatima, but Ali and his supporters (the Shiat Ali, or Party of Ali) eventually recognized the community’s choice. The next two caliphs (successors) enjoyed the recognition of the entire community. When Ali finally succeeded to the caliphate in A.D. 656, Muawiyah, governor of Syria, rebelled. After the ensuing civil war, Ali moved his capital to Iraq, where he was murdered shortly thereafter. Ali’s death ended the last of the so-called four orthodox caliphates and the period in which the entire community of Islam recognized a single caliph. Muawiyah proclaimed himself caliph from Damascus. The Shiat Ali refused to recognize him or his line and withdrew to establish the dissident sect, known as the Shias, supporting the claims of Ali’s line to the caliphate based on descent from the Prophet. The larger faction, the Sunnis, adhered to the position that the caliph must be elected. This ancient schism accounts for contemporary Islam’s separate Sunni and Shia sects [Question 2.10] (Figure 13.15).
Originally political, the differences between Sunni and Shia interpretations rapidly took on theological and metaphysical overtones. In principle, a Sunni approaches God directly; there is no clerical hierarchy. Some duly appointed religious figures, however, exert considerable social and political power. Imams usually are men of importance in their communities, but they need not have any formal training; among the Bedouins, for example, any tribal member may lead communal prayers. Shia Muslims, also known as Shiites, hold the fundamental beliefs of other Muslims. But, in addition to these tenets, the distinctive institution of Shia Islam is the Imamate— a much more exalted position than the Sunni imam, who is primarily a prayer leader. In contrast to Sunni Muslims, who view the caliph as only a temporal leader who lacks a hereditary view of Muslim leadership, Shia Muslims believe the Prophet Muhammad designated Ali to be his successor as Imam, exercising both spiritual and temporal leadership. Each Imam in turn designated his successor—through 12 Imams—each holding the same powers (Figure 13.16).

The duties of Muslims form the five pillars of Islam, which set forth the acts necessary to demonstrate and reinforce the faith. These are the recitation of the shahada (“There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his prophet”), daily prayer (salat), almsgiving (zakat), fasting (sawm), and pilgrimage (hajj). [Question 2.11] The believer is to pray in a prescribed manner after purification through ritual ablutions each day at dawn, midday, midafternoon, sunset, and nightfall. Prescribed genuflections and prostrations accompany the prayers, which the worshiper recites facing toward Mecca. Whenever possible, men pray in congregation at the mosque with an imam, and on Fridays make a special effort to do so. The Friday noon prayers provide the occasion for weekly sermons by religious leaders. Women may also attend public worship at the mosque, where they are segregated from the men, although most frequently women pray at home. A special functionary, the muezzin, intones a call to prayer to the entire community at the appropriate hour. Those out of earshot determine the time by the sun.

The ninth month of the Muslim calendar is Ramadan, a period of obligatory fasting in commemoration of Muhammad’s receipt of God’s revelation. Throughout the month all but the sick and weak, pregnant or lactating women, soldiers on duty, travelers on necessary journeys, and young children are enjoined from eating, drinking, smoking, and sexual intercourse during the daylight hours. All Muslims, at least once in their lifetime, should make the hajj to Mecca to participate in special rites held there during the twelfth month of the lunar calendar. Muhammad instituted this requirement, modifying pre-Islamic custom, to emphasize sites associated with God and Abraham (Ibrahim), founder of monotheism and father of the Arabs through his son Ismail. The lesser pillars of the faith, which all Muslims share, are jihad, or the crusade to protect Islamic lands, beliefs, and institutions, and the requirement to do good works and to avoid all evil thoughts, words, and deeds. In addition, Muslims agree on certain basic principles of faith based on the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad: there is one God, who is a unitary divine being in contrast to the trinitarian belief of Christians; Muhammad, the last of a line of prophets beginning with Abraham and including Moses and Jesus, was chosen by God to present His message to humanity; and there is a general resurrection on the last or judgment day. Islam is a system of religious beliefs and an all-encompassing way of life. Muslims believe that God (Allah) revealed to the Prophet Muhammad the rules governing society and the proper conduct of society’s members. It is incumbent on the individual therefore to live in a manner prescribed by the revealed law (sharia) and on the community to build the perfect human society on earth according to holy injunctions. Islam recognizes no distinctions between church and state. The distinction between religious and secular law is a recent development that reflects the more pronounced role of the state in society, and Western economic and cultural penetration. The impact of religion on daily life in Muslim countries is far greater than that found in the West since the Middle Ages.

Language Background
Arabic is the official language and mother tongue of about 76 percent of the population and is understood by a majority of others. [Question 2.12]. The term Arab therefore refers to people from Morocco to Iraq who speak Arabic as their primary language [see Chapter 2, Activity 1: Middle East Culture Region]. One of the Semitic languages, Arabic is related to Aramaic, Phoenician, Syriac, Hebrew, various Ethiopic languages, and the Akkadian of ancient Babylonia and Assyria. Minorities speak Turkic, Armenian, and Persian (Figure 13.17).

The other main language spoken in Iraq is Kurdish, spoken by Iraq’s Kurdish minority. Kurdish is not a mere dialect of Farsi or Persian, as many Iranian nationalists maintain, and it is certainly not a variant of the Semitic or Turkic tongues. It is a separate language, part of the Indo-European family.

Kurdish Background
Kurds represent by far the largest non-Arab ethnic minority, accounting in 1987 for about 19 percent of the population, or around 3.1 million. Ranging across northern Iraq, the Kurds are part of the larger Kurdish population (probably numbering close to 16 million) that inhabits the wide arc from eastern Turkey and the northwestern part of Syria through Soviet Azerbaijan and Iraq to the northwest of the Zagros Mountains in Iran. [Question 2.14, part 2] [Note: CNN.com reports the total Kurdish population in 2001 as 25 million.] Although the largest numbers live in Turkey (variously estimated at between 3 and 10 million), it is in Iraq that they are most active politically. Although the government hotly denies it, the Kurds are almost certainly a majority in the region around Kirkuk, Iraq’s richest oil-producing area. The Kurds inhabit the highlands and mountain valleys and have traditionally been organized on a tribal basis. Historians have traced the Kurds’ existence in these mountains back at least 3,000 years, and throughout their history they have been feared as fierce warriors. Once mainly nomadic or semi-nomadic, Kurdish society was characterized by a combination of urban centers, villages, and pastoral tribes since at least the Ottoman period. The migration to the cities, particularly of the young intelligentsia, helped develop Kurdish nationalism in the twentieth century. The historic enmity between the Kurds and Iraq’s Arabic-speaking central government has contributed to the tenacious survival of Kurdish culture. The Kurds’ most distinguishing characteristic and the one that binds them to one another is their language.[Question 2.14, part 1] The Kurds have been locked in an unremittingly violent struggle with the central government in Baghdad almost since the founding of the Iraqi republic in 1958. It appeared in the early 1970s that the dissident Kurds—under the general- ship of the legendary leader Mulla Mustafa Barzani—might actually carve out an independent Kurdish area in northern Iraq. The war between Iraq and Iran that broke out in 1980 afforded Iraqi Kurdish groups the opportunity to intensify their opposition to the government.

Religion/Language Summary
At least 95 percent of the population adheres to some form of Islam. The government gives the number of Shias as 55 percent but probably 60 to 65 percent is a reasonable figure. Most Iraqi Shias are Arabs. Almost all Kurds, approximately 19 percent of population, are Sunnis. About 13 percent are Sunni Arabs, including Saddam Hussein and most past rulers of Iraq. [Questions 2.13, 2.15 and 2.16]. The remainder of the population includes small numbers of Turkomans, mostly Sunni Muslims; Assyrians and Armenians, predominantly Christians; Yazidis, of Kurdish stock with a syncretistic faith; and a few Jews.

Enter Saddam
Between the overthrow of the monarchy in 1958 and the emergence of Saddam Hussein in the mid-1970s, Iraqi history was a chronicle of conspiracies, coups, countercoups, and fierce Kurdish uprisings. Saddam finally became president of Iraq in 1979 after gradually becoming the moving force behind his party. Beginning in 1975, however, with the signing of the Algiers Agreement—an agreement between Saddam Hussein and the Shah of Iran that effectively ended Iranian military support for the Kurds in Iraq—Saddam Hussein was able to bring Iraq an unprecedented period of stability. He effectively used rising oil revenues to fund large-scale development projects, to increase public sector employment, and significantly to improve education and health care. This tied increasing numbers of Iraqis to the ruling Baath (Arab Socialist Resurrection) Party. As a result, for the first time in contemporary Iraqi history, an Iraqi leader successfully forged a national identity out of Iraq’s diverse social structure. Saddam Hussein’s achievements and Iraq’s general prosperity, however, did not survive long. Threatened by the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and by its potential influence on Iraq’s majority population, Iraq attacked Iran on September 22, 1980. The border with Iran had been a continuing source of conflict and was partially responsible for the outbreak in 1980 of the Iran-Iraq war. The terms of a treaty negotiated in 1937 under British auspices provided that in one area of the Shatt al Arab, the boundary would be at the low-water mark on the Iranian side (Figure 13.18). The narrow Shatt is Iraq’s only access to ocean transportation. Iran subsequently insisted that the 1937 treaty was imposed on it by “British imperialist pressures.” Through Algerian mediation, Iran and Iraq agreed in March 1975 to define the common border all along the Shatt estuary as the middle of the main channel. To compensate Iraq for the loss of what formerly had been regarded as its territory, pockets of territory along the mountain border in the central sector of its common boundary with Iran were assigned to it. Nonetheless, in September 1980 Iraq went to war with Iran, citing among other complaints the fact that Iran had not turned over to it the land specified in the Algiers Accord. [See the box, “U.S. Support of Iraq in the 1980s.”] [Question 2.17]

In 1988 the boundary with Kuwait was another outstanding problem. It was fixed in a 1913 treaty between the Ottoman Empire and British officials acting on behalf of Kuwait’s ruling family, which in 1899 had ceded control over foreign affairs to Britain. The boundary was accepted by Iraq when it became independent in 1932, but in the 1960s and again in the mid-1970s, the Iraqi government seized parts of Kuwait, basing its claim on the fact that Kuwait was part of the Basra Province of the Ottoman Empire, the rest of which went to Iraq, and therefore was unfairly separated from Iraq by Britain. Kuwait made several representations to the Iraqis during the war to fix the border once and for all, but Baghdad repeatedly demurred, claiming that the issue was a potentially divisive one that could enflame nationalist sentiment inside Iraq. On August 2, 1990, Iraq attacked and then annexed Kuwait. [Question 2.21] Saddam Hussein accused Kuwait of illegally pumping oil from Iraq’s Rumaila oil field, which spans the border; of not paying off its debt to Iraq for defending the Arab nation against the Persians (Iran); and of refusing to negotiate Iraq’s needs for a deepwater port at the Shatt al Arab.[Question 2.22]

►FRONTLINE
The Long Road to War
Copyright, 1995-2002
Excerpted from: Frontline (Public Broadcasting System). The Long Road to War—Chronology: www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/longroad/etc/cron.html.

[pic]July 1979
Saddam Hussein seizes presidency Saddam stages a palace coup and President Bakr resigns for health reasons. Among Saddam's first actions after assuming the presidency is purging the Ba'ath Party of any potential enemies. Several weeks into his presidency, Saddam calls a meeting of the Ba'ath Party leadership and insists it be videotaped. He announces there are traitors in their midst and reads out their names. One by one, the individuals are led out, never to be seen again. Tapes of the meeting are sent throughout the country, allowing Saddam to send a message to the Iraqi elite.

1980-1988: Geopolitics and the Iran-Iraq War

Sept. 22, 1980
Iraq attacks Iran In one of the largest ground assaults since World War II, Saddam sends 200,000 troops across the Iranian border, initiating what would become a bloody eight-year conflict. When Ronald Reagan becomes president in 1981, he endorses a policy aiming for a stalemate in the war so that neither side emerges from the war with any additional power. But in 1982, fearing Iraq might lose the war, the U.S. begins to help. Over the next six years, a string of CIA agents go to Baghdad. Hand-carrying the latest satellite intelligence about the Iranian front line, they pass the information to their Iraqi counterparts. The U.S. gives Iraq enough help to avoid defeat, but not enough to secure victory. [Questions 2.19 and 2.20]

1981
Israel attacks Iraqi nuclear reactor In a surprise raid, Israeli forces destroy the nuclear reactor at Osirak that the Iraqis had built with French assistance. Most countries, including the U.S., condemn Israel for violating Iraqi sovereignty.

1986
Iran-Contra scandal breaks The Iran-Contra scheme is conceived by Reagan administration officials. Iran had been running out of military supplies in its war with Iraq and Reagan is advised that the U.S. could strike a deal in which secret arms sales to Iran could lead to the release of U.S. hostages held by pro-Iranian terrorists in Lebanon. Public exposure of the plan—which also involved illegally diverting the proceeds from the arms sales to the U.S.-backed Contras in Nicaragua—leads to the end of the U.S. policy. However, when Saddam learns of America's actions, he vows never to trust the U.S. again.

1987
U.S. Navy aids Iraq In the name of freedom of navigation, the U.S. throws the weight of its navy behind Iraq's position in the Persian Gulf. A large American armada protects tanker traffic and cripples the Iranian navy. A war, which at that point had been going against Iraq, is again transformed into a stalemate. [Questions 2.19 and 2.20]

March 1988
Saddam gasses Iraqi Kurds U.S. hopes for a civilized Iraq are shattered when Iraqi forces unleash a devastating gas attack in the town of Halabja, killing an estimated 5,000 Kurds. Richard Murphy, the State Department's top Middle East diplomat for most of the 1980s, told FRONTLINE in 1990 that after the attack at Halabja, the U.S. expressed its dismay at Iraq's use of chemical weapons. He recalled that Secretary of State George Schultz persuaded the Iraqis to "articulate a position that they would forswear future use of chemical weapons."

1988
Ceasefire in Iran-Iraq war; U.S. declares its policy successful The end of the war comes with a ceasefire under conditions that reflect the U.S. government's best hopes. A classified State Department document states: "We can legitimately assert that our post-Irangate policy has worked. The outward thrust of the Iranian revolution has been stopped. Iraq's interests in development, modernity and regional influence should compel it in our direction. We should welcome and encourage the interest, and respond accordingly."

1990-1991: The Buildup to War

July 17, 1990
Saddam threatens Arab neighbors By 1990, Saddam Hussein has the fourth-largest army in the world and his program to build weapons of mass destruction is well underway. However, after its eight-year war with Iran, Iraq is billions of dollars in debt and angry with its Arab neighbors about the low price of oil, its chief source of cash. [Question 2.22] In a speech celebrating the 22nd anniversary of his party's rise to power, Hussein threatens Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. "Iraqis," he says, "will not forget the maxim that cutting necks is better than cutting the means of living. Oh, God almighty, be witness that we have warned them." Within two weeks of the speech, Iraq masses 100,000 troops at the Kuwaiti border.

July 25, 1990
Saddam meets with U.S. ambassador April Glaspie, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, is summoned to meet with Saddam. According to an Iraqi transcript, Saddam harangues her about his dispute with Kuwait over oil prices. Ambassador Glaspie tells Saddam, "The president personally wants to deepen the relationship with Iraq." She expresses concerns about the Iraqi troops on the Kuwaiti border, but reflecting the official State Department position, she says, "We don't have much to say about Arab-Arab differences, like your border differences with Kuwait. ... All we hope is you solve these matters quickly." In the final week of July, Saddam reinforces his troops. But several Arab leaders privately assure the U.S. that Iraq will not invade Kuwait. The State Department continues to make it clear the U.S. will not intervene in the dispute.

Aug. 2, 1990
Kuwait invaded; world condemns Iraq [Question 2.21] On the day of Iraq's invasion, President George H.W. Bush flies to Aspen, Colo. for a previously scheduled meeting with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. She encourages Bush to "draw a line in the sand" not only to protect Saudi Arabia, but to warn Saddam that an attack on Saudi Arabia will be considered an attack on the U.S. Less than 48 hours after the invasion, the U.S. and the Soviet Union issue an unprecedented joint statement condemning Iraq. On Aug. 5, Bush declares, "This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait."

Aug. 8, 1990
U.S. troops sent to Persian Gulf[pic] In one of the president's rare speeches from the Oval Office, Bush announces his decision to send U.S. troops to the Gulf. He emphasizes that the action is defensive and that he is banking on sanctions to force the Iraqis from Kuwait. "The United States will do its part to see that these sanctions are effective and to induce Iraq to withdraw without delay from Kuwait," he says. "America does not seek conflict, but America will stand by her friends."

August-September 1990
U.S. builds worldwide coalition; Saddam resists On Sept. 11, six weeks into the crisis, President Bush visits Capitol Hill, where he gives a glowing report of his diplomatic success in building a worldwide coalition. The president had just returned from a quickly-called summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who had firmly endorsed the U.S. policy towards Iraq. Because of Soviet support, the U.S.—for the first time since the Korean War—is willing and able to use the United Nations to organize world support against the aggression. In the first five weeks of the crisis, the Security Council adopts five tough resolutions against Iraq. However, by the end of September, Saddam Hussein has 360,000 troops in place and they are digging in deep along the Saudi border. Despite his isolation, it appears Saddam is not planning to leave Kuwait.

Nov. 29, 1990
U.N. authorizes use of "all means necessary" to eject Iraq from Kuwait Secretary of State James Baker personally conducts the last minute lobbying at the U.N. to convince the Security Council to authorize the use of force if Iraq does not leave Kuwait by Jan. 15, 1991. "Simply put," he tells the Security Council, "it is a choice between right and wrong.".

Jan. 12, 1991
Congress authorizes use of force After three days of debate, the U.S. House and Senate both adopt a resolution giving President Bush the authority to make war on Iraq.

Jan. 15, 1991
U.N. deadline for Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait The deadline passes without any Iraqi action.

1991: The Gulf War and its Aftermath
Jan. 17, 1991
Gulf War begins The air war lasts for six weeks, during which coalition forces drop more bombs than had been dropped during all of World War II. On Feb. 24, the ground attack begins, and within days, the U.S. military realizes that the Iraqis are not going to stand and fight. After Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell expresses concern that the allied rout of Iraqi forces would be seen as a massacre, Bush decides to end the war. On Feb. 28, a cease-fire takes effect at 8 AM.

March 1991
Saddam brutally suppresses rebellions in north and south of Iraq; U.S. does not intervene During the war, President Bush repeatedly calls for Iraqis to rise up against Saddam. Within days of the cease-fire, Shia Muslims in the south of Iraq, close to the allied front lines, take up arms against Saddam. In the first heady days of the uprising, the rebels control the streets. Saddam quickly moves loyal forces and uses armed helicopters to suppress the uprising in the south. U.S. troops can see the fighting from their positions, but are ordered not to intervene. There are estimates that tens of thousands of Shia Muslims were killed. A few days after the Shia uprising begins, the Kurds start a rebellion in northern Iraq. While the southern uprising had been somewhat incoherent, the Kurds have political leaders who can shape the revolt. As the rebellion gathers momentum, Kurdish leaders who had been living abroad return. They hope to trigger a coup against Saddam that will result in a new Iraqi leader who will let the Kurds run their own affairs. Saddam's forces soon attack the rebels, who are not supported by Washington, which had decided against backing an uprising that might lead to Iraq's breakup. The rebel forces are hopelessly outgunned. As Kurdish cities are shelled, there is panic among the population. The cities of Kurdistan empty and a million people head towards the mountains in an attempt to reach the safety of Turkey and Iran. Again, U.S. forces, who see the exodus, are ordered not to intervene. With Saddam clinging to power, Bush decides on a containment strategy towards Iraq: tough U.N. inspections, economic sanctions, and no-fly zones to protect the Kurds and Shia Muslims in the north and south of the country.

1991-1992
U.S. inaction catalyzes foreign policy hawks Saddam's brutality and America's failure to support the Shia and Kurdish uprisings deeply affects a group of neo-conservative thinkers in Washington, including Richard Perle, William Kristol, and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz, who complains that the U.S. inaction is comparable to "idly watching a mugging." In 1992 Paul Wolfowitz takes the lead in drafting an internal set of military guidelines—"Defense Planning Guidelines"—which is prepared every few years by the Defense Department. Wolfowitz's draft argues for a new military and political strategy in a post-Cold War world. Containment, it says, is an old idea, a relic of the Cold War. America should talk loudly and carry a big stick—and use it—to preempt the use of weapons of mass destruction. And if America had to act alone, so be it. Controversy erupts after the draft is leaked to the press. The Bush White House orders Defense Secretary Cheney to rewrite it. In the new draft there is no mention of preemption and U.S. willingness to act alone.

1991-1998: Trying to Disarm Saddam
April 3, 1991
U.N. passes Resolution 687, creates commission to inspect Iraqi weapons facilities As a result of the resolution, Saddam stays in power, but economic sanctions remain. Saddam must destroy his weapons and allow inspection of all weapons facilities by a U.N. Special Commission, known as UNSCOM.[Question 2.24] Iraq is given 15 days to provide a list of its weapons of mass destruction. The next day, Iraqi deception over weapons of mass destruction begins. Iraqi nuclear scientists are ordered to hide nuclear weapons from inspectors, collect and move computer data and formulate a justification for the existence of Iraqi nuclear labs. On April 6, Iraq formally accepts Resolution 687 and UNSCOM makes its first inspection in June.

June 1991
Iraqis defy UNSCOM inspectors On one of UNSCOM's first assignments, inspectors demand access to an Iraqi military facility. The base commander will not allow inspectors into the building, but lets them climb onto a water tower, where inspectors spot Iraqi trucks slipping out the back gate. Although U.N. vehicles catch up with the trucks and try to pull them over, the Iraqis refuse to stop and fire warning shots at the inspectors. However, the inspectors obtain photographs showing the trucks are carrying calutrons—giant iron magnets that can be used to enrich uranium.

September 1991
UNSCOM raid discovers Saddam's nuclear plans In a surprise raid on an Iraqi government building, UNSCOM inspectors, led by David Kay, discover a hidden archive of documents that reveals Saddam's plans to develop a nuclear weapon. Incensed by the inspectors' discovery, the Iraqis haul off the original documents, and demand the inspectors turn over their photographs of the documents. The standoff lasts for four days and the weapons inspectors are held hostage in the parking lot outside of the building. They are finally allowed to leave with their evidence when the U.S. announces it will intervene militarily on behalf of UNSCOM.

June 26, 1993
Clinton orders bombing Iraqi intelligence headquarters The U.S. fires 23 Tomahawk cruise missiles in response to a plot to assassinate former President Bush with a car bomb when he traveled to Kuwait the previous April. The plot is linked to Iraqi intelligence.

Aug. 7, 1995
Saddam's son-in-law reveals biological weapons program Hussein Kamel, a high-ranking Iraqi general—and one of Saddam's sons-in-law—announces in Jordan that he has defected with his brother and their wives. Kamel had been in charge of hiding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and he tells the chief U.N. arms inspector of a vast arsenal of weapons UNSCOM had failed to find and where the cache is hidden. The inspectors raid Al Hakam, which Kamel had described as Iraq's top-secret germ warfare production facility. The Iraqis had denied having any biological weapons programs, but there UNSCOM discovers Russian-built fermenters used to produce anthrax and growth medium used to grow biological toxins. The inspectors bury 17 tons of it and blow up the entire facility. Nine months later, Kamel accepts Saddam's guarantee that he can safely return to Iraq. The moment they cross the border, Saddam's two daughters are separated from their husbands; Kamel and his brother are killed several days later.

Fall 1997-Winter 1998
Inspections reach crisis point In September 1997, UNSCOM inspector Dr. Diane Seaman leads a surprise inspection of an Iraqi food laboratory suspected of housing biological weapons work. Entering through a back door, Dr. Seaman catches men running out with briefcases that contain records of biological weapons activity on the stationary of the Iraqi Special Security Organization (SSO)—the organization that guards Saddam Hussein. That night, UNSCOM attempts to inspect the SSO offices but is blocked. The Iraqis are furious and in October they accuse the American UNSCOM inspectors of spying. They threaten to expel all American inspectors and shoot down U-2 surveillance planes. In response, UNSCOM Chairman Richard Butler withdraws all weapons inspectors on Nov. 13 and an exasperated President Bill Clinton orders a bombing campaign. At the last minute, the Russians convince the Iraqis to back down and the planes are turned around. The inspectors return to Iraq in late November. Confrontations resume almost immediately and continue throughout the winter, with the U.S. continuing to threaten military action to force Iraqi compliance. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan travels to Baghdad and negotiates a compromise in which Saddam allows the inspectors to return to Iraq, but restricts their access to sensitive sites. Saddam agrees to allow inspectors to visit eight disputed "presidential sites" with diplomatic escorts.

Dec. 16-19, 1998
Weapons inspectors leave Iraq; U.S. and Britain embark on Operation Desert Fox [pic]In December, Saddam ends Iraqi cooperation with UNSCOM and accuses the U.N. of espionage. On Dec. 15, UNSCOM Chairman Richard Butler reports that the Iraqis are refusing to cooperate with inspectors and the next day, President Clinton—on the eve of the House impeachment vote—orders Operation Desert Fox, a four-day bombardment of key Iraqi military installations. It is conducted without U.N. Security Council approval. On Dec. 16, the day the bombing begins, the U.N. withdraws all weapons inspectors. Inspectors will not return to Iraq until November 2002, following the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441.

March 1999*
George W. Bush Considers Presidential Run [pic]Bush sets up an exploratory committee for a presidential campaign and foreign policy experts descend on Austin, Texas, to help prepare him for a White House run. His tutors include both neo-conservative hawks, such as Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, and pragmatic realists, including Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. During the campaign, neither side will really know where it stands with the candidate.

Jan. 20, 2001*
The Second Bush Presidency Begins Both hawks and realists present Bush with candidates for foreign policy posts in the new administration. The hawks end up with three important jobs: Lewis "Scooter" Libby becomes Cheney's chief of staff, Donald Rumsfeld becomes secretary of defense, and Paul Wolfowitz becomes deputy secretary of defense. But Colin Powell's nomination as secretary of state is viewed as a formidable counterweight to the Pentagon hawks. The two groups express varying views on how to deal with Saddam Hussein. The hawks develop a military option and push for increased aid to the Iraqi opposition. Colin Powell advocates "smart sanctions" that would allow more humanitarian goods into Iraq, while tightening controls on items that could have military applications.

*Source: Frontline (PBS). Chronology: Evolution of the Bush Doctrine: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/etc/cron.html

2001-2003: Iraq - Test Case of a New Foreign Policy
Sept. 11, 2001
Attacks on World Trade Center and Pentagon In his address to the nation on the evening of Sept. 11, President George W. Bush announces that the U.S. will "make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."

Sept. 15, 2001
Administration debates Iraq at Camp David Four days after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush gathers his national security team at a Camp David war council. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz argues that it is the perfect opportunity to move against state sponsors of terrorism, including Iraq. But Secretary of State Colin Powell tells the president that an international coalition would come together only for an attack on Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, not an invasion of Iraq. The war council votes with Powell; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld abstains. The president ultimately decides that the war's first phase will be Afghanistan. The question of Iraq will be reconsidered later.

Sept. 20, 2001
Bush addresses joint session of Congress; new doctrine begins to emerge[pic] Bush's speech to Congress builds on his address from the night of Sept. 11. "We will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism," he declares. "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."
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Jan. 29, 2002
State of the Union signals possible action in Iraq Bush's State of the Union address introduces the idea of an "axis of evil" that includes Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, and signals the U.S. will act preemptively to deal with such nations. He continues to build the case against Iraq, saying, "Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens—leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections—then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world." The president warns, "We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."
[pic]
August 2002
Within administration, an open debate on Iraq Powell reports trouble getting U.S. allies on board for a war with Iraq and wants to consult the U.N. At a private dinner with the president on Aug. 5, Powell warns that the U.S. should not act unilaterally and must fully consider the economic and political consequences of war—particularly in the Middle East. Powell's view is championed by Brent Scowcroft, former national security adviser in the Bush I administration, who publishes an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on Aug. 15, Scowcroft argues that Bush is moving too quickly on Iraq, and advocates pressing for the return of U.N. inspectors. Soon after, Vice President Cheney emerges as the administration voice advocating action. In a Nashville speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Cheney warns that "a return of inspectors would provide no assurance whatsoever of [Saddam's] compliance with U.N. resolutions." In the same speech, Cheney also outlines a larger, long-term strategy whereby regime change in Iraq could transform the Middle East: "Regime change in Iraq would bring about a number of benefits to the region. When the gravest of threats are eliminated, the freedom-loving peoples of the region will have a chance to promote the values that can bring lasting peace. As for the reaction of the Arab 'street,' the Middle East expert Professor Fouad Ajami predicts that after liberation, the streets in Basra and Baghdad are 'sure to erupt in joy in the same way the throngs in Kabul greeted the Americans.' Extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of Jihad. Moderates throughout the region would take heart. And our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced, just as it was following the liberation of Kuwait in 1991." As Bush leaves for an August vacation in Crawford, Texas, he agrees to take his case to the U.N. and asks his advisers to start preparing the speech.

Sept. 12, 2002
Bush addresses U.N. on Iraq In the United Nations speech, Bush calls for a new U.N. resolution on Iraq. But the president also warns: "The purposes of the United States should not be doubted. The Security Council resolutions will be enforced—the just demands of peace and security will be met—or action will be unavoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power."

Sept. 17, 2002
Bush National Security Strategy released[pic] Twenty months into his presidency, George W. Bush releases his administration's National Security Strategy (NSS). It is the first time the various elements of the Bush Doctrine have been formally articulated in one place. The 33-page document presents a bold and comprehensive reformulation of U.S. foreign policy and outlines a new, muscular American posture in the world—a posture that will rely on preemption to deal with rogue states and terrorists harboring weapons of mass destruction. The document says that America will exploit its military and economic power to encourage "free and open societies." It states for the first time that the U.S. will never allow its military supremacy to be challenged as it was during the Cold War. And the NSS insists that when America's vital interests are at stake, it will act alone, if necessary.[Question 2.25] Policy analysts note that there are many elements in the 2002 NSS document that bear a strong resemblance to recommendations presented in the controversial Defense Department document authored by Paul Wolfowitz back in 1992, under the first Bush administration.

Nov. 8, 2002
U.N. Security Council passes Resolution 1441 The resolution is adopted by a unanimous vote of the Security Council. It warns of "serious consequences" if Iraq does not offer unrestricted access to U.N. weapons inspectors.

Authors’ Note: The Frontline Chronology stops here. We have added key events. Consider these first two events a continuation of the chronology section “2001-2003: Iraq - Test Case of a New Foreign Policy”

February 5, 2003
Powell Addresses U.N. About Weapons of Mass Destruction U.S. Secretary of State outlined the evidence that Iraq was purposely concealing its biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons of mass destruction program [Question 2.26] (Figure 13.25). He pointed out that Iraq was in violation of U.N. Resolution 1441, which entailed “serious consequences” for noncompliance with UNSCOM, and that everyone knew that “serious consequences” meant the use of force when the resolution was crafted. He also tried to make a case for growing Iraqi involvement with the Al Qaeda terrorist organization. [Question 2.26]

March 2003
Breakdown of Diplomacy The U.S. failed to convince many countries that war was the best course of action at this time. Germany and France led the opposition [Question 2.27], arguing that peaceful diplomatic options had not yet been exhausted, and that war could further the rift between the Islamic world and the West. Furthermore, they felt that international action had effectively contained Iraq’s threat, albeit not eliminated it. France, Russia, and China—all permanent members of the U.N. Security Council—threatened to veto any U.N. resolution authorizing an invasion of Iraq. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that war on Iraq without a new resolution endorsing it “will not be in conformity with the (UN) Charter,” a cornerstone of international law. Many people in the United States and worldwide were not convinced that Iraq had any substantial contribution to the September 11 attacks. Surprisingly to many Americans, the international focus began to turn away from the danger of a tyrant with weapons of mass destruction and towards the danger of a world with a single superpower—the United States—that is willing and able to project that power around the world unilaterally (i.e., on their own). Among the more prominent supporters of the U.S. position were the United Kingdom, Australia, Spain, Islamic countries like Qatar and Kuwait, and former Soviet-bloc countries like Bulgaria and Poland. [Question 2.27] Several Arab and Islamic countries in the Persian Gulf called on Saddam Hussein to step down voluntarily to save the region from war. Turkey, however, refused to let US/Coalition forces launch a ground assault on Northern Iraq from Turkey, and reasserted its right to send troops into Iraq to stem Kurdish refugee flows and suppress any movement towards an independent Kurdish state. On the eve of war, chief weapons inspector Hans Blix reports that Iraq is cooperating more but the inspectors need more time.

Saddam Overthrown

March 20, 2003
War Begins American missiles strike Baghdad. Several days later, US and British ground troops invade Iraq from the south.

April 9, 2003
Fall of Baghdad

May 2003
UN Security Council backs US-led administration in Iraq.

Occupation and Reconstruction of Iraq

July 6, 2003
Doubts Raised About Rationale for War Former U.S. Ambassador to Niger Joseph Wilson writes a now-famous op-ed piece in the New York Times entitled “What I Didn’t Find in Africa.” The article suggested that the Bush Administration knew that some of the evidence presented to the UN by Secretary of State Colin Powell on February 5, 2003 was unsubstantiated. Wilson had been sent to Niger by the CIA to investigate rumors that Iraq had tried to buy yellowcake uranium, where he discovered forged documents. One week later, columnist Robert Novak, citing senior administration officials, published an article outing Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, as an undercover CIA agent. An entire CIA operation and front company has to be shut down. Two and a half years later, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald would indict Vice President Richard Cheney’s Chief of Staff, “Scooter” Libby for obstructing the investigation into the leak of this classified information.

December 14, 2003
Saddam Hussein captured in a “spider hole” in Tikrit

April-November 2004
Coalition forces battle Shia militia in Fallujah Month-long US military siege of the militia of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr in the Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah, followed by more fighting in Najaf.

May 2004
Abu Ghraib Torture Scandal Photos of abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US forces are published.

June 28, 2004
Iraqi Sovereignty US officially hands over sovereignty to an Iraqi interim government.

January 30, 2005
Election of Iraqi Transitional National Assembly Eight million people estimated to vote for a Transitional National Assembly. The Shia United Iraqi Alliance wins a majority of assembly seats. Kurdish parties come in second, and most Sunnis boycott the election. The main task of this assembly is to draft a constitution for Iraq and, having largely boycotted the elections, the Sunnis have relatively little say over it—a potentially significant strategic mistake.

2005
Shia Insurgency Dwindles, Sunni Insurgency Rages Car bombings, ambushes, suicide bombings, and assassinations of collaborators with foreign authorities escalates. The number of Iraqi civilians killed since the invasion is estimated between 25,000 and 100,000. The number of U.S. soldiers killed passes 2,000.

August 2005
Constitution Drafted Shia and Kurdish negotiators draft a constitution for Iraq with the help of U.S. negotiators. Sunni representatives do not get involved until the last minute.

October 15, 2005
Referendum on Constitution Passes Voters in all but three Sunni-dominated provinces approved a draft constitution. The constitution can be vetoed if three provinces oppose it by at least a 2/3 majority. Opposition is not strong enough in the third province, Niniveh, to reach the 2/3 level necessary. The constitution creates a federal democratic republic consistent with Islamic principles, with rights for women, and regional autonomy for the Kurds and other groups of provinces that so desire it (see page 438, Text of the Draft Iraqi Constitution, for details).

►The New York Times Review of Books
How to Get Out of Iraq
By Peter W. Galbraith
Volume 51, Number 8 (May 13, 2004)

1. In the year since the United States Marines pulled down Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad's Firdos Square, things have gone very badly for the United States in Iraq and for its ambition of creating a model democracy that might transform the Middle East. As of today the United States military appears committed to an open-ended stay in a country where, with the exception of the Kurdish north, patience with the foreign occupation is running out, and violent opposition is spreading. Civil war and the breakup of Iraq are more likely outcomes than a successful transition to a pluralistic Western-style democracy. Much of what went wrong was avoidable. Focused on winning the political battle to start a war, the Bush administration failed to anticipate the postwar chaos in Iraq. Administration strategy seems to have been based on a hope that Iraq's bureaucrats and police would simply transfer their loyalty to the new authorities, and the country's administration would continue to function. All experience in Iraq suggested that the collapse of civil authority was the most likely outcome, but there was no credible planning for this contingency. In fact, the US effort to remake Iraq never recovered from its confused start when it failed to prevent the looting of Baghdad in the early days of the occupation. Americans like to think that every problem has a solution, but that may no longer be true in Iraq. Before dealing at considerable length with what has gone wrong, I should also say what has gone right. Iraq is free from Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party. Along with Cambodia's Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein's regime was one of the two most cruel and inhumane regimes in the second half of the twentieth century. Using the definition of genocide specified in the 1948 Genocide Convention, Iraq's Baath regime can be charged with planning and executing two genocides —one against the Kurdish population in the late 1980s and another against the Marsh Arabs in the 1990s. In the 1980s, the Iraqi armed forces and security services systematically destroyed more than four thousand Kurdish villages and several small cities, attacked over two hundred Kurdish villages and towns with chemical weapons in 1987 and 1988, and organized the deportation and execution of up to 182,000 Kurdish civilians. In the 1990s the Saddam Hussein regime drained the marshes of southern Iraq, displacing 500,000 people, half of whom fled to Iran, and killing some 40,000. In addition to destroying the five-thousand-year-old Marsh Arab civilization, draining the marshes did vast ecological damage to one of the most important wetlands systems on the planet. Genocide is only part of Saddam Hussein's murderous legacy. Tens of thousands perished in purges from 1979 on, and as many as 300,000 Shiites were killed in the six months following the collapse of the March 1991 Shiite uprising. One mass grave near Hilla may contain as many as 30,000 bodies. [Question 2.28] In a more lawful world, the United Nations, or a coalition of willing states, would have removed this regime from power long before 2003. However, at precisely the time that some of the most horrendous crimes were being committed, in the late 1980s, the Reagan and Bush administrations strongly opposed any action to punish Iraq for its genocidal campaign against the Kurds or to deter Iraq from using chemical weapons against the Kurdish civilians. On August 20, 1988, the Iran–Iraq War ended. Five days later, the Iraqi military initiated a series of chemical weapons attacks on at least forty-nine Kurdish villages in the Dihok Governorate (or province) near the Syrian and Turkish borders. As a staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I (along with Chris Van Hollen, now a Maryland congressman) interviewed hundreds of survivors in the high mountains on the Turkish border. Our report…established conclusively that Iraq had used nerve and mustard agents on tens of thousands of civilians…[Question 2.28] Except for a relatively small number of Saddam Hussein's fellow Sunni Arabs who worked for his regime, the peoples of Iraq are much better off today than they were under Saddam Hussein. The problems that threaten to tear Iraq apart—Kurdish aspirations for independence, Shiite dreams of dominance, Sunni Arab nostalgia for lost power—are not of America's making (although the failure to act sooner against Saddam made them less solvable). Rather, they are inherent in an artificial state held together for eighty years primarily by brute force.

2. American liberation—and liberation it was—ended the brute force. Iraqis celebrated the dictatorship's overthrow, and in Baghdad last April ordinary citizens thrust flowers into my hands (Figure 13.27). Since then, however:

• Hostile action has killed twice as many American troops as died in the war itself, while thousands of Iraqis have also died.
• Terrorists have killed the head of the United Nations Mission, Sergio Vieira de Mello; Iraq's most prominent Shiite politician, the Ayatollah Baqir al-Hakim; and the deputy prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Sami Abdul Rahman, along with hundreds of others.
• Looting has caused billions of dollars of damage, most of which will have to be repaired at the expense of the US taxpayer.
• $150 billion has already been spent on Iraq, an amount equal to 25 percent of the non-defense discretionary federal budget. (By contrast, the first Gulf War earned a small profit for the US government, owing to the contributions of other nations.)
• Discontent with the US-led occupation boiled over into an uprising in the Shiite areas of Iraq on the first anniversary of liberation and a persistent insurgency in the Sunni Triangle [Question 2.29] degenerated into a full-scale battle in Fallujah. Many on the US-installed Iraqi Governing Council strongly opposed the US military response, and the US-created security institutions—the new Iraqi police and the paramilitary Iraqi Civil Defense Corps—refused to fight, or in some cases, joined the rebels.
• US credibility abroad has been undermined by the failure to find weapons of mass destruction.[Question 2.29] Spain's elections, Tony Blair's sinking poll results, and the prospective defeat of Australia's Howard government underscore the political risk of too close an association with the United States.
• Relations with France and Germany have been badly hurt, in some cases by the gratuitous comments made by senior US officials.
• The United States does not now have the military or diplomatic resources to deal with far more serious threats to our national security. President Bush rightly identified the peril posed by the nexus between weapons of mass destruction and rogue states. The greatest danger comes from rogue states that acquire and disseminate nuclear weapons technology. At the beginning of 2003 Iraq posed no such danger. As a result of the Iraq war the United States has neither the resources nor the international support to cope effectively with the very serious nuclear threats that come from North Korea, Iran, and, most dangerous of all, our newly designated "major non-NATO ally," Pakistan.

With fewer than one hundred days to the handover of power to a sovereign Iraq on June 30, there is no clear plan—and no decision—about how Iraq will be run on July 1, 2004… As is true of so much of the US administration of postwar Iraq, the damage here is self-inflicted. While telling Iraqis it wanted to defer constitutional issues to an elected Iraqi body, the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority could not resist trying to settle fundamental constitutional issues in the interim constitution. The US government lawyers who wrote the interim constitution, known formally as the Transitional Administrative Law, made no effort to disguise their authorship. All deliberations on the law were done in secret and probably fewer than one hundred Iraqis saw a copy of the constitution before it was promulgated. To write a major law in any democracy—much less a constitution—without public discussion should be unthinkable. Now that Iraqis are discovering for the first time the contents of the constitution, it should come as no surprise that many object to provisions they never knew were being considered. Iraq's Shiite leaders say that the National Assembly due to be elected in January 2005 should not be constrained by a document prepared by US government lawyers, deliberated in secret, and signed by twenty-five Iraqis selected by Ambassador Bremer. In particular, the Shiites object to a provision in the interim constitution that allows three of Iraq's eighteen governorates (or provinces) to veto ratification of a permanent constitution. This, in effect, allows either the Kurds or the Sunni Arabs, each of whom make up between one fifth and one sixth of Iraq's population, to block a constitution they don't like. (It is a wise provision. Imposing a constitution on reluctant Kurds or Sunni Arabs will provoke a new cycle of resistance and conflict.) The Shiite position makes the Kurds, who are well armed, reluctant to surrender powers to a central government that may be Shiite-dominated. At the moment the Sunni Arabs have few identifiable leaders. The Kurds, however, are well organized. They have an elected parliament and two regional governments, their own court system, and a 100,000 strong military force, known as the Peshmerga. The Peshmerga, whose members were principal American allies in the 2003 war, are better armed, better trained, and more disciplined than the minuscule Iraqi army the United States is now trying to reconstitute. Early in 2005, Iraq will likely see a clash between an elected Shiite-dominated central government trying to override the interim constitution in order to impose its will on the entire country, and a Kurdistan government insistent on preserving the de facto independent status Kurdistan has enjoyed for thirteen years. Complicating the political struggle is a bitter territorial dispute over the oil-rich province of Kirkuk involving Kurds, Sunni Arabs, Shiite Arabs, Sunni Turkmen, and Shiite Turkmen. It is a formula for civil war.

3. How did we arrive at this state of affairs? I arrived in Baghdad on April 13, 2003, as part of an ABC news team. It was apparent to me that things were already going catastrophically wrong. When the United States entered Baghdad on April 9 last year, it found a city largely undamaged by a carefully executed military campaign. However, in the two months following the US takeover, unchecked looting effectively gutted every important public institution in the city with the notable exception of the Oil Ministry.[Question 2.29] The physical losses include:

• The National Library, which was looted and burned. Equivalent to our Library of Congress, it held every book published in Iraq, all newspapers from the last century, as well as rare manuscripts. The destruction of the library meant the loss of a historical record going back to Ottoman times.
• The Iraqi National Museum, which was also looted. More than 10,000 objects were stolen or destroyed. The Pentagon has deliberately, and repeatedly, tried to minimize the damage by excluding from its estimates objects stolen from storage as well as displayed treasures that were smashed but not stolen.
• Baghdad and Mosul Universities, which were stripped of computers, office furniture, and books. Academic research that took decades to carry out went up in smoke or was scattered…

Even more surprising, the United States made no apparent effort to secure sites that had been connected with Iraqi WMD programs or buildings alleged to hold important intelligence. As a result, the United States may well have lost valuable information that related to Iraqi WMD procurement, paramilitary resistance, foreign intelligence activities, and possible links to al-Qaeda.

• On April 16, looters attacked the Iraqi equivalent of the US Centers for Disease Control, stealing live HIV and live black fever bacteria. UNMOVIC [United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission] and UNSCOM had long considered the building suspicious and had repeatedly conducted inspections there. The looting complicates efforts to understand and account for any Iraqi bioweapons research in the past. A Marine lieutenant watched the looting from next door. He told us, "I hope I am not responsible for Armageddon, but no one told me what was in that building."

• Although US troops moved onto the grounds of Iraq's sprawling Tuwaitha nuclear complex, they did not secure the warehouse that contained yellowcake and other radiological materials. Looters took materials that terrorists could use for a radiological weapon, although much of that material was eventually recovered. The looted nuclear materials were in a known location, and already had been placed under seal by the International Atomic Energy Commission.

• Ten days after the US took over Baghdad, I went through the unguarded Iraqi Foreign Ministry, going from the cooling unit on the roof to the archives in the basement, and rummaging through the office of the foreign minister. The only other people in the building were looters, who were busy opening safes and carrying out furniture. They were unarmed and helped me look for documents. Foreign Ministry files could have shed light on Iraqis' overseas intelligence activities, on attempts to procure WMD, and on any connections that may have existed with al-Qaeda. However, we may never know about these things, since looters scattered and burned files during the ten days, or longer, that this building was left unguarded. The looting demoralized Iraqi professionals, the very people the US looks to in rebuilding the country. University professors, government technocrats, doctors, and researchers all had connections with the looted institutions. Some saw the work of a lifetime quite literally go up in smoke. The looting also exacerbated other problems: the lack of electricity and potable water, the lack of telephones, and the absence of police or other security. Most importantly, the looting served to undermine Iraqi confidence in, and respect for, the US occupation authorities.

4. In the parts of Iraq taken over by rebels during the March 1991 uprising, there had been the same kind of looting of public institutions. In 2003, the United States could not have prevented all the looting but it could have prevented much of it. In particular, it could have secured the most important Iraqi government ministries, hospitals, laboratories, and intelligence sites. It could have protected the Iraq National Museum and several other of Iraq's most important cultural and historical sites. In the spring of 2003, Thomas Warrick of the State Department's Future of Iraq Working Group prepared a list of places in Baghdad to be secured. The Iraq National Museum was number two on the list. At the top of the list were the paper records of the previous regime—the very documents I found scattered throughout the Foreign Ministry and in other locations. What happened next is a mystery. My State Department informants tell me the list was sent to Douglas Feith, an undersecretary in the Department of Defense, and never came out of his office. Feith's partisans insist that uniformed American military failed to take action. In either case, the lack of oversight was culpable. During the war in Kosovo, the Clinton White House was criticized for insisting on presidential review of proposed targets. President Bush, notorious for his lack of curiosity, seems never to have asked even the most basic question: "What happens when we actually get to Baghdad?" The failure to answer this question at the start set back US efforts in Iraq in such a way that the US has not recovered and may never do so. The Bush administration decided that Iraq would be run by a US civilian administrator—initially, Retired General Jay Garner—and American advisers who would serve as the de facto ministers for each of the Iraqi government ministries. All this was based on the expectation that the war would decapitate the top leadership of the Saddam Hussein regime, and the next day everyone else would show up for work. Predictably, this did not happen. In 1991, all authority disappeared in the areas that fell into rebel hands. But even had things gone as the Bush administration hoped, it was not prepared to run Iraq. As the war began, the Bush administration was still recruiting the American officials who would serve as the de facto Iraqi ministers. The people so recruited had no time to prepare for the assignment, either in learning about Iraq or in mastering the substantive skills needed to run the ministry assigned to them. Many mistakes were made. For example, the US official in charge of prisons decided to work with Ali al-Jabouri, the warden of Abu Ghraib prison, apparently unaware of the prison's fearsome reputation as the place where tens of thousands perished under Saddam Hussein. [Question 2.29] The coalition rehabilitated Abu Ghraib and today uses it as a prison. The symbolism may be lost on the US administrators but it is not lost on Iraqis. [Authors’ note: Gailbraith’s article was written shortly before the photos of U.S. troops torturing and ridiculing Iraqi prisoners were discovered and published.] In late 2002 and early 2003, I attended meetings with senior US government officials on Kirkuk, the multi-ethnic city that is just west of the line marking the border of the self-governing Kurdish region. When Kirkuk, which is claimed by the Kurds, was held by Saddam Hussein, horrific human rights abuses had taken place there. I had been to Kirkuk in the 1980s, and I was concerned that Kurds brutally expelled in the 1980s and 1990s would return to settle scores with Arabs who had been settled in their homes. The week the war began, I asked the US official responsible for Kirkuk how he planned to deal with this problem. We will rely on the local police, he explained. I asked whether the local police were Kurds or Arabs. He did not know. It remains astonishing to me that US plans for dealing with ethnic conflict in the most volatile city inall of Iraq rested on hopes about the behavior of a police force about which they did not have the most basic information. The Kirkuk police were, in fact, Arabs, and had assisted in the ethnic cleansing of the city's Kurds. [Authors’ note: The U.S. State Department defines ethnic cleansing as “the systematic and force removal of the members of an ethnic group from a community or communities in order to change the ethnic composition of a given region.”] They were not around when Kurdish forces entered the city on April 10, 2003. Many other Arabs also fled, although this was largely ignored by the international press. The United States' political strategies in Iraq have been no less incoherent…The United States, it was decided, would turn power over on June 30, 2004, to a sovereign Iraqi government that would be chosen in a complicated system of caucuses held in each of Iraq's "governorates (or provinces)." By January this plan was put aside (it was widely described as "election by people selected by people selected by Bremer")… The Bush administration's strategies in Iraq are failing for many reasons. First, they are being made up as the administration goes along, without benefit of planning, adequate knowledge of the country, or the experience of comparable situations. Second, the administration has been unwilling to sustain a commitment to a particular strategy. But third, the strategies are all based on an idea of an Iraq that does not exist.

5. The fundamental problem of Iraq is an absence of Iraqis. In the north the Kurds prefer almost unanimously not to be part of Iraq, for reasons that are very understandable. Kurdistan's eighty-year association with Iraq has been one of repression and conflict, of which the Saddam Hussein regime was the most brutal phase. Since 1991, Kurdistan has been de facto independent and most Iraqi Kurds see this period as a golden era of democratic self-government and economic progress. In 1992 Kurdistan had the only democratic elections in the history of Iraq, when voters chose members of a newly created Kurdistan National Assembly. During the last twelve years the Kurdistan Regional Government built three thousand schools (as compared to one thousand in the region in 1991), opened two universities, and permitted a free press; there are now scores of Kurdish-language publications, radio stations, and television stations (Figure 13.29). For the older generation, Iraq is a bad memory, while a younger generation, which largely does not speak Arabic, has no sense of being Iraqi. The people of Kurdistan almost unanimously prefer independence to being part of Iraq. In just one month, starting on January 25 of this year, Kurdish nongovernmental organizations collected 1,700,000 signatures on petitions demanding a vote on whether Kurdistan should remain part of Iraq. This is a staggering figure, representing as it does roughly two thirds of Kurdistan's adults. In the south, Iraq's long-repressed Shiites express themselves primarily through their religious identity. In early March I traveled throughout southern Iraq. I saw no evidence of any support for secular parties. If free elections are held in Iraq, I think it likely that the Shiite religious parties —principally the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Dawa (the Call)—will have among them an absolute majority in the National Assembly.

The wild card is Moqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Shiite uprising. If he is allowed to compete in elections, he will certainly take a share of the Shiite vote. If he is excluded (or imprisoned or killed), his supporters will likely influence the policies of the mainstream Shiite parties, or conceivably disrupt the elections. None of this is good for hopes of creating a stable, democratic Iraq. The Shiites are not separatists but many of them believe their majority status entitles them to run all of Iraq, and to impose their version of an Islamic state. They also consider connections with Shiites elsewhere as important as their nationalist feelings about Iraq. Iranian Shiites, such as the Ayatollah al-Sistani and, from the grave, Ayatollah Khomeini, have enormous political and spiritual influence in southern Iraq. Their portraits are ubiquitous. Mainstream Iraqi Arab Shiites, such as SCIRI's leader Abdel Azziz al-Hakim, often advocate a very pro-Iranian line. Sunni Arabs have always been the principal Iraqi nationalists, and a part of the anti-US uprising in the Sunni Triangle is a nationalist one. [Question 2.33] The Sunni Arabs have long been accustomed to seeing the Iraqi state as a part of a larger Arab nation, and this was a central tenet of the Baath Party. As Sunni Arabs face the end of their historic domination of Iraq, they may seek to compensate for their minor- ity status inside Iraq by further identifying themselves with the greater Arab nation. Connections with other Sunni populations may eventually become even more important among the Sunni Arabs than pan-Arabism. As elsewhere in Arab Iraq, the Sunni religious parties appear to be gain-ing ground in the country's Sunni center at the expense of the secular parties. Radical Sunni Islamic groups, including those with recent links to al-Qaeda, appear to have an ever more important part in the uprising in the Sunni Triangle (which explains the increasing use of suicide bombers, not a tactic that appeals to the more worldly Baathists). By attacking Shiite religious leaders and celebrations (for example the deadly bombings this March during the as-Shoura religious holiday in Baghdad and Karbala, and the car bomb assassination of SCIRI leader Baqir al-Hakim), Sunni extremists seek to provoke civil war between Iraq's two main religious groups.

6. [Initially], the United States strategy [was] to hold Iraq together by establishing a strong central government… Little of this will come to pass. The Kurdistan National Assembly has put forward a comprehensive proposal to define Kurdistan's relations with the rest of Iraq… [Authors’ note: Galbraith was mostly right. See your next reading—Text of the Draft Iraqi Constitution—to see the regional autonomy provisions that were approved in October 2005.] This places the Kurds on a collision course with the Shiites and the Sunni Arabs. The Shiite religious parties insist that Islam must be the principal source of law throughout Iraq. Both Shiites and Sunni Arabs object to downgrading Arabic to one of two official languages. Sunni Arab nationalists and Shiite religious leaders object to Kurdistan retaining even a fraction of the autonomy it has today. [Authors’ note: Here Galbraith was wrong about the Shiites, who overwhelmingly approved the new constitution recognizing Kurdish as an official language and granting substantial regional autonomy to any group of provinces that wants it.] There are also acute conflicts between Shiite Arabs and Sunni Arabs. These have to do with the differing interpretations of Islam held by the two groups' religious parties and conflicts between pro-Iranian Shiites and Arab nationalist Sunnis… In my view, Iraq is not salvageable as a unitary state. From my experience in the Balkans, I feel strongly that it is impossible to preserve the unity of a democratic state where people in a geographically defined region almost unanimously do not want to be part of that state. I have never met an Iraqi Kurd who preferred membership in Iraq if independence were a realistic possibility. But the problem of Iraq is that a breakup of the country is not a realistic possibility for the present. Turkey, Iran, and Syria, all of which have substantial Kurdish populations, fear the precedent that would be set if Iraqi Kurdistan became independent [Question 2.34] Both Sunni and Shiite Arabs oppose the separation of Kurdistan. The Sunni Arabs do not have the resources to support an independent state of their own. (Iraq's largest oil fields are in the Shiite south or in the disputed territory of Kirkuk.) [Question 2.35] Further, as was true in the Balkans, the unresolved territorial issues in Iraq would likely mean violent conflict. Kirkuk is perhaps the most explosive place. The Kurds claim it as part of historic Kurdistan. They demand that the process of Arabization of the region—which some say goes back to the 1950s—should be reversed. The Kurds who were driven out of Kirkuk by policies of successive Iraqi regimes should, they say, return home, while Arab settlers in the region are repatriated to other parts of Iraq. While many Iraqi Arabs concede that the Kurds suffered an injustice, they also say that the human cost of correcting it is too high. Moreover, backed by Turkey, ethnic Turkmen assert that Kirkuk is a Turkmen city and that they should enjoy the same status as the Kurds. It will be difficult to resolve the status of Kirkuk within a single Iraq; it will be impossible if the country breaks up into two or three units. [Question 2.36] And while Kirkuk is the most contentious of the territories in dispute, it is only one of many. The best hope for holding Iraq together—and thereby avoiding civil war—is to let each of its major constituent communities have, to the extent possible, the system each wants. This, too, suggests the only policy that can get American forces out of Iraq. In the north this means accepting that Kurdistan will continue to govern its own affairs and retain responsibility for its own security. US officials have portrayed a separate Kurdistan defense force as the first step leading to the breakup of Iraq. The Kurds, however, see such a force not as an attribute of a sovereign state but as insurance in case democracy fails in the rest of Iraq. No one in Kurdistan would trust an Iraqi national army (even one in which the Kurds were well represented) since the Iraqi army has always been an agent of repression, and in the 1980s, of genocide. The Kurds also see clearly how ineffective are the new security institutions created by the Americans. In the face of uprisings in the Sunni Triangle and the south, the new Iraqi police and civil defense corps simply vanished. Efforts to push the Kurds into a more unitary Iraq will fail because there is no force, aside from the US military, that can coerce them. Trying to do so will certainly inflame popular demands for separation of the Kurdish region in advance of January's elections. If Kurdistan feels secure, it is in fact more likely to see advantages to cooperation with other parts of Iraq. Iraq's vast resources and the benefits that would accrue to Kurdistan from revenue sharing provide significant incentives for Kurdistan to remain part of Iraq, provided doing so does not open the way to new repression. (Until now, most Iraqi Kurds have seen Iraq's oil wealth as a curse that gave Saddam the financial resources to destroy Kurdistan.) In the south, Iraq's Shiites want an Islamic state. They are sufficiently confident of public support that they are pushing for early elections. The United States should let them have their elections, and be prepared to accept an Islamic state—but only in the south. In most of the south, Shiite religious leaders already exercise actual power, having established a degree of security, taken over education, and helped to provide municipal services. In the preparation of Iraq's interim constitution, Shiite leaders asked for (and obtained) the right to form one or two Shiite regions with powers comparable to those of Kurdistan. They also strongly support the idea that petroleum should be owned by the respective regions, which is hardly surprising since Iraq's largest oil reserves are in the south. There is, of course, a logical inconsistency between Shiite demands to control a southern region and the desire to impose Islamic rule on all of Iraq. Meeting the first demand affects only the south; accepting the second is an invitation to civil war and must be resisted. Federalism—or even confederation —would make Kurdistan and the south governable because there are responsible parties there who can take over government functions. It is much more difficult to devise a strategy for the Sunni Triangle—until recently the location of most violent resistance to the American occupation—because there is no Sunni Arab leadership with discernible political support. While it is difficult to assess popular support for the insurrection within the Sunni Triangle, it is crystal clear that few Sunni Arabs in places like Fallujah are willing to risk their lives in opposing the insurgents. We can hope that if the Sunni Arabs feel more secure about their place in Iraq with respect to the Shiites and the Kurds, they will be relatively more moderate. Autonomy for the Sunni Arab parts of Iraq is a way to provide such security. There is, however, no way to know if it will work. Since 1992, the Iraqi opposition has supported federalism as the system of government for a post-Saddam Iraq. Iraq's interim constitution reflects this consensus by defining Iraq as a federal state. There is, however, no agreement among the Iraqi parties on what federalism actually means… Last November, Les Gelb, the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, created a stir by proposing, in a New York Times Op-Ed piece, a three-state solution for Iraq, modeled on the constitution of post-Tito Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav model would give each of Iraq's constituent peoples their own republic. These republics would be self-governing, financially self-sustaining, and with their own territorial military and police forces. The central government would have a weak presidency rotating among the republics, with responsibilities limited to foreign affairs, monetary policy, and some coordination of defense policy. While resources would be owned by the republics, some sharing of oil revenues would be essential, since an impoverished Sunni region is in no one's interest. This model would solve many of the contradictions of modern Iraq. The Shiites could have their Islamic republic, while the Kurds could continue their secular traditions. Alcohol would continue to be a staple of Kurdish picnics while it would be strictly banned in Basra. The three-state solution would permit the United States to disengage from security duties in most of Iraq. There are today fewer than three hundred coalition troops in Kurdistan, which would, under the proposal being made here, continue to be responsible for its own security. By contrast, introducing an Iraqi army and security institutions into Kurdistan, as the Bush administration says it still wants to do, would require many more coalition troops—because the Iraqi forces are not up to the job and because coalition troops will be needed to reassure a nervous Kurdish population. If the United States wanted to stay militarily in Iraq, Kurdistan is the place; Kurdish leaders have said they would like to see permanent US bases in Kurdistan. A self-governing Shiite republic could also run its own affairs and provide for its own security. It is not likely to endorse Western values, but if the coalition quickly disengages from the south, this may mean the south would be less overtly anti-American. Staying in the south will play directly into the hands of Moqtada al-Sadr or his successors. Moderate Shiite leaders, including the Ayatollah al-Sistani, counseled patience in response to al-Sadr's uprising, and helped negotiate the withdrawal of al-Sadr's supporters from some police stations and government buildings. The scope of the uprising, however, underscores the coalition's perilous position in the south. The failure of the Iraqi police and the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps to respond highlights the impotence of these American-created security institutions. The sooner power in the south is handed over to people who can exercise it, the better. Delay will only benefit anti-American radicals like al-Sadr. As for the Sunni Triangle, one hope is for elections to produce a set of leaders who can restore order and end the insurrection. Presumably this is an outcome the Sunni rebels do not want to see happen; they will use violence to prevent a meaningful election in large parts of the Sunni Triangle. In these circumstances, the United States may face the choice of turning power over to weak leaders and living with the resulting chaos, or continuing to try to pacify the Sunni Triangle, which may generate ever more support for the insurrection. There may be no good options for the United States in the Sunni Triangle. Nevertheless the three-state approach could limit US military engagement to a finite area. Baghdad is a city of five million and home to large numbers of all three of Iraq's major constituent peoples. With skilled diplomacy, the United States or the United Nations might be able to arrange for a more liberal regime in Baghdad than would exist in the south. Kurdish and Shiite armed forces and police could provide security in their own sections of the capital, as well as work together in Sunni areas (with whatever local cooperation is possible) and in mixed areas. Such an arrangement in Iraq's capital is far from ideal, but it is better than an open-ended US commitment to being the police force of last resort in Iraq's capital. Because of what happened to Yugoslavia in the 1990s, many react with horror to the idea of applying its model to Iraq. Yet Yugoslavia's breakup was not inevitable. In the 1980s, Slovenia asked for greater control over its own affairs and Milosevic refused. Had Milosevic accepted a looser federation, there is every reason to think that Yugoslavia—and not just Slovenia— would be joining the European Union this May. Still, a loose federation will have many drawbacks, especially for those who dreamed of a democratic Iraq that would transform the Middle East. The country would remain whole more in name than in reality. Western- style human rights are likely to take hold only in the Kurdish north (and even there not completely). Women's rights could be set back in the south, and perhaps also in Baghdad. In administering elections and allowing a federation to emerge, the US would badly need the help of the UN and other international organizations and, if it can get it, of the principal European nations as well. The alternative is an indefinite US occupation of Iraq in which we have fewer and fewer allies. It is an occupation that the US cannot afford. It also prevents the US from addressing more serious threats to its national security.

7. The American involvement in Iraq will be a defining event for the US role in the world for the coming decades. Will it be seen as validating the Bush administration's doctrines of preventive war and largely unilateral action? In my view, Iraq demonstrates all too clearly the folly of the preventive war doctrine and of unilateralism. Of course the United States must reserve the right to act alone when the country is under attack or in imminent danger of attack. But these are also precisely the circumstances when the United States does not need to act alone. After September 11 both NATO and the United Nations Security Council gave unqualified support for US action, including military action, to deal with the threat of international terrorists based in Afghanistan. After the Taliban was defeated, other countries contributed troops—and accepted casualties—in order to help stabilize the country; and they have also contributed billions to Afghanistan's reconstruction… In Iraq the United States chose to act without the authorization of the Security Council, without the support of NATO, and with only a handful of allies. Aside from the British and the Kurdish Peshmerga, no other ally made any significant contribution to the war effort. The United States is paying practically all the expenses of the Iraq occupation. Even those who supported the unilateral intervention in Iraq seem by now to realize that it cannot be sustained. The Bush administration, having scorned the United Nations, is now desperate to have it back. It turns out that there are some things that only the United Nations can do—such as run an election that Iraqis will see as credible or give a stamp of legitimacy to a political transition. But the most urgent reason to want United Nations participation is to share the burden...The reason is cost. Taking all expenses into account, one year of involvement in Iraq costs between $50 billion and $100 billion. Under the mandatory assessment scale for the United Nations this would cost France and Germany some $5 billion to $10 billion each, and they would face pressure to put their own troops in harm's way. NATO assessments are similarly costly. [O]ur allies…may not be willing to commit resources on this scale to help the United States get out of Iraq. As a European diplomat told me before last year's war, "It will be china shop rules in Iraq: you break it, you pay for it." I believe United States policy is most successful when it follows international law and works within the United Nations, according to the provisions of the Charter. This is not just a matter of upholding the ideals of the UN; it is also practical. As our war in Iraq demonstrates, we cannot afford any other course.
—April 15, 2004

►Text of the Draft Iraqi Constitution
(Highlights quoted by the authors)

www.un.int/iraq/TAL_Constitution/Draft_Iraqi_Constitution_english.pdf.

Preamble We the sons of Mesopotamia, land of the prophets, resting place of the holy imams, the leaders of civilization and the creators of the alphabet, the cradle of arithmetic: on our land, the first law put in place by mankind was written; in our nation, the most noble era of justice in the politics of nations was laid down; on our soil, the followers of the prophet and the saints prayed, the philosophers and the scientists theorized and the writers and poets created… We the people of Iraq, newly arisen from our disasters and looking with confidence to the future through a democratic, federal, republican system, are determined - men and women, old and young - to respect the rule of law, reject the policy of aggression, pay attention to women and their rights, the elderly and their cares, the children and their affairs, spread the culture of diversity and defuse terrorism. We are the people of Iraq, who in all our forms and groupings undertake to establish our union freely and by choice, to learn yesterday's lessons for tomorrow, and to write down this permanent constitution from the high values and ideals of the heavenly messages and the developments of science and human civilization, and to adhere to this constitution, which shall preserve for Iraq its free union of people, land and sovereignty [Figure 13.30].

Government The Republic of Iraq is an independent, sovereign nation, and the system of rule in it is a democratic, federal, representative (parliamentary) republic. [Question 2.37]

National Identity Iraq is a multiethnic, multi-religious and multi-sect country. It is part of the Islamic world and its Arab people are part of the Arab nation.

Capital Baghdad with its administrative boundaries is the capital of the Republic of Iraq.

Baath Party Entities or trends that advocate, instigate, justify or propagate racism, terrorism, “takfir” (declaring someone an infidel), sectarian cleansing, are banned, especially the Saddamist Baath Party in Iraq and its symbols, under any name. It will not be allowed to be part of the multilateral political system in Iraq.

Individual Rights Iraqis are equal before the law without discrimination because of sex, ethnicity, nationality, origin, color, religion, sect, belief, opinion or social or economic status. The state guarantees social and health insurance, the basics for a free and honorable life for the individual and the family – especially children and women - and works to protect them from illiteracy, fear and poverty and provides them with housing and the means to rehabilitate and take care of them.

Islam Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation: a) No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam. b) No law can be passed that contradicts the principles of democracy. c) No law can be passed that contradicts the rights and basic freedoms outlined in this constitution.

This constitution guarantees the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people and the full religious rights for all individuals and the freedom of creed and religious practices.

Language Arabic and Kurdish are the two official languages for Iraq. Iraqis are guaranteed the right to educate their children in their mother tongues, such as Turkomen or Assyrian, in government educational institutions, or any other language in private educational institutions, according to educational regulations.

Women's Rights Citizens, male and female, have the right to participate in public matters and enjoy political rights, including the right to vote and run as candidates. A proportion of no less than 25 percent of the seats in the Council of Representatives is specified for the participation of women.

Powers of the Federal and Regional Governments The federal authority will maintain the unity of Iraq, its integrity, independence, sovereignty and its democratic federal system. The federal authorities will have the following exclusive powers: foreign policy; national defense; customs, currency, and trade; weights and measures; passports and residency; mail and broadcasting; general budgets; guaranteeing levels of water flow into Iraq; census; and certain aspects of oil (see below). All that is not written in the exclusive powers of the federal authorities is in the authority of the regions.

Regional Autonomy The regions comprise one province or more, and two regions or more have the right to join into one region. One province or more have the right to form a region, based on a request for a referendum. The governments of regions have the right to practice legislative, executive and judicial powers according to this constitution, except in what is listed as exclusive powers of the federal authorities. The regional authority has the right to amend the implementation of the federal law in the region in the case of a contradiction between the federal and regional laws in matters that do not pertain to the exclusive powers of the federal authorities. A fair share of the revenues collected federally is designated to regions, in a way that suffices their duties and obligations, taking into consideration the (region's) resources and needs. The region's government is responsible for all that is required to manage the region, in particular establishing and organizing internal security forces for the region such as police, security and regional guards…Laws legislated in Kurdistan since 1992 remain in effect, and decisions made by the government of the Kurdistan region—including contracts and court decisions—are effective unless they are voided or amended according to the laws of the Kurdistan region by the concerned body, as long as they are not against the constitution. [Question 2.37]

Provinces Provinces that were not included into a region are given extensive administrative and financial authorities to enable them to self-manage according to the principle of administrative decentralization.

Oil wealth The federal government will administer oil and gas extracted from current fields in cooperation with the governments of the producing regions and provinces on condition that the revenues will be distributed fairly in a manner compatible with the demographical distribution all over the country. A quota should be defined for a specified time for affected regions that were deprived in an unfair way by the former regime or later on, in a way to ensure balanced development in different parts of the country. The federal government and the governments of the producing regions and provinces together will draw up the necessary strategic policies to develop oil and gas wealth to bring the greatest benefit for the Iraqi people, relying on the most modern techniques of market principles and encouraging investment.

Amendments [Amendments require approval by] two-thirds of the members of the Council of Representatives, the consent of the people in a general referendum, and the endorsement of the president within seven days. No amendment is allowed that lessens the powers of the regions that are not among the exclusive powers of the federal authority, except with the agreement of the legislative council of the concerned region and the consent of a majority of it population in a general referendum.

ITEMS TO HAND IN:

Activity 1: • Questions 1.1–1.33
Activity 2: • Questions 2.1–2.39

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The correct answer is underlined after each question. Then, in the annotated readings, the source of the answer is highlighted in yellow, followed by the [Question number, in brackets]. For questions marked by a *, the answer cannot be found directly in the readings. In these cases, the appropriate sources from which the answer can be deduced is given after the answer, in blue.For these questions marked by a *, it goes without saying that one of the required sources is the definition of the key terms.

U.S. Support of Saddam Hussein in the 1980s
According to Newsweek, “American officials have known that Saddam was a psychopath” since the early 1970s. Yet after radical Islamic fundamentalists overthrew the pro-American, westernized Shah of Iran in 1979 and took U.S. embassy employees hostage, the Reagan administration was eager to use Saddam as a “surroga
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K g ì ö Na-/®° ¯kp@P¶¼|#~#¦%³%´%#&$&D&â=ò=te” against Iran. [Question 2.19] When Iran’s “human wave attacks” began to tilt the balance in the Iran-Iraq war, the United States began providing Iraq with assistance that would give it an edge against its common enemy, Iran (Figure 13.19). The United States provided Saddam with satellite photos, tanks, “dual-use” (commercial-military) equipment such as database software, helicopters, and video surveillance equipment. Most troubling, the United States also shipped chemical analysis equipment and “bacteria/fungi/protozoa,” which could be used to make anthrax, to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission.[Question 2.20] It is not known for certain whether any of the materials provided by the Americans were used by Iraq against its own people. After the Iran-Iraq War, Newsweek writes that “the State Department was equivocating with Saddam right up to the moment he invaded Kuwait in August 1990.”
Source: Dickey, Christopher and Evan Thomas. 2002. How Saddam Happened. Newsweek (Sept. 23, 2002):34–41.